I spent the day cleaning my office which meant moving stacks of paper from one end of my desk to the other and trying to throw away or organize a third. I did empty my garbage can twice so maybe I did get something good done. I'm supposed to be writing my new book for Harlequin but instead I'm brainstorming my next book for 5 Spot. I always prefer writing like that. If something's due, do the other project. It'll be more fun and hell, the deadline's not for months.
I don't know if other writers collect paper the way I do, but I get attached to mail and magazine clippings and story ideas and well, reams and reams of paper. I have this "must keep" mentality about paper. If I toss something, I might need it later, or the scribblings on this page might be a brilliant future novel. So save. And save. And save. I hate it. I want to throw away most of my office and live in a squeaky clean modern room with just a beautiful piece of sculpture on my desk. Next to a beautiful new computer with a huge screen. A computer that won't crash or run slow. An office that would never be mine.
I create in chaos. I rip articles, ads, and photos out of magazines nightly. I print off stories and articles from the internet daily. I collect and collect and then eventually try to sort and make use of. I wouldn't have to do this, though, if I had proper ideaphoria. You know, the making of ideas. I'm not good at coming up with lots of ideas. I'm not a prolific idea maker. I'm a selective and slow idea shaper. I get one idea and I massage it endlessly until I can finally write a book. But if the idea is shoddy? Well, I'm out of luck because that's my idea. I'm going to have to find a way to make it work.
Now the office is relatively clean. Still not much open space but I do see the wood grain in places again. And I have a photo of Shey in a folder for my next 5 Spot novel. And a cool house Shey's neighbor is going to live in. And a premise. Now if only that equaled a novel.
Time to clean some more. Or write. No, clean. Cleaning is far easier.
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3 comments:
i do that, collect paper notes. Then every couple of months I sit and type up the notes and then they no longer clutter the desk. They clutter the computer.
Oh man, do I collect - stuff. Paper definitely. Piles and piles of it. Mostly things To Be Filed, but my overstuffed file boxes are already crying out for mercy. I know, I just know that the instant I throw something away, I'm going to need it. Polish luck, I guess. I have newspaper articles or hastily scribbled dialogue epiphanies all over the place - and that's not just because I've (relatively) recently moved.
Wood grain? What's that?
You're supposed to throw away those papers, with brillant ideas you can't quite remember writing, six months later when you can finally see the desk again?
Oh. Let me write that down...
Yes, I know the Catch-22.
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