Sunday, March 01, 2009

Tidy me

Blergh. I’ve spent all day tidying my office. I promised myself I’d get going on it before I start my next 10,000 words which I must be tomorrow. It was disgusting. There were several toppling piles of paper and they were all crucial too; I couldn’t just tip them into a bin bag. I’d got papers from school, travel documents for Singapore next weekend, vital notes about novel one and novel two.

In fact, I had to tidy up before I start writing again, because somewhere there was a graph of which character was what age in what year and I’m starting to get confused. Now I know exactly where it is.

I spent the whole time listening to BBC’s World Book Club podcasts. I’ve listened to David Guterson, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Annie Proulx, David Lodge, Chinua Achebe, John Irving and Khaled Hosseini. Not wasted time at all and my desk and area are looking lovely and tidy.

I haven’t quite finished tidying … I’ve got some piles of books to find a home for (there isn’t a home – every shelf is already full of double stacked books) and some magazines to make decisions about (they’re destined for the recycling bin but I hate throwing magazines away – what if I need the information again?) I’ve also got a gargantuan box of papers to go through but they’re really old so I can ignore them for a bit longer.

Still, I got a bit over excited and prematurely got my Dymo label maker out. I’m sure I’ll be much more organised from now on…

9 comments:

Sue Guiney said...

Ooh, a Dymo label maker. Always wanted one of those! My problem is all the damn poetry mags/journals. How long do I keep them? It feels blasphemous to throw them away -- real people like me have work in there. But....
Well done you to tackle it. Oh, and are you off to Singapore tomorrow? Do tell....

Jenny Beattie said...

Hi Sue, these magazines are the weeklies, when once I considered having a go at short stories (never got round to it along side the novel!) I need to read up to date ones anyway, so I might as well bin them... it's still so hard.

Singapore is Friday for the weekend; just the children and I as Daughter has a gymnastics competition.

HelenMWalters said...

I'm supposed to be tidying my writing room - but I can't face it. Instead I've ordered a new bookcase online as a kind of displacement activity because I've convinced myself I can't tidy up in there until I've got my new bookcase. I'm so useless! I also have piles of old women's magazines which are too old to be any good for research. They have to go!

DOT said...

'I’m sure I’ll be much more organised from now on… ' Ever the optimist, I see :)

Deborah Carr (Debs) said...

I really should follow your example, my writing space is such a mess.

Liane Spicer said...

Good going. Hope some of it rubs off on me before the heaps of papers and books collapse and I'm never seen again.

Jenny Beattie said...

Helen, I haven't been able to face it for months. The time had come, however, to face the fact that I could be seriously maimed by a falling mountain!

DOT, LOL, you got me bang to rights, there. One can dream, surely?

Debs, I couldn't bear not being able to find anything. It was horrible.

Wordtryst, that was exactly what I was worrying about. My children still need me, you know?

Carol said...

I'm going to show my ignorance....what are Book Club podcasts? Is it what other people think of the books or a reading?

Actually, I've just realised that I can google to find out (Doh!!)

C x

Jenny Beattie said...

Carol, they are Book Clubs held in a studio (usually) to discuss a book with the author present. Questions come from the audience and are emailed in from listeners. Fab.