Spring Clean Your Writing

Writers on the whole are notorious for never throwing anything away. This may on the surface appear a bold statement, but it is as a rule a very true one.  Stop for just a moment and look around your room, or office and unless you’re one of the rare breed, you’ll see what I mean. I can already hear your arguments beginning. Things like “but everything is here because I may need it”. It is sad to admit it, but I used to be one of the writers who fall into this category. My room come office was brimming with all those things that would prove to be helpful sooner or later. My files were overflowing, my desk was a shrine to both yesterdays and today’s paperwork and as for my bookshelves, and well overfull would be an understatement.  You see I was under the misapprehension that the more you had, the easier your life would run, as a writer anyway.

 Someone changed this for me with just a handful of well-chosen words. They basically said that the fewer things that you have around you and in front of you, the easier your thought processes would be. I laughed at this idea at first, but then stopped to think. Somewhere at the back of my mind a tiny seed had been planted and it began to grow with lightening speed. Did having a room brimming to the top with clutter really aid me in my literary pursuits? The conclusion I quickly came to, was a definite no. Of course not, how could it. I had seen so many times those TV shows where some self proclaimed expert comes in and gives the home owner a complete lifestyle make over. Invariably at the end of such programs the victim proclaims how their home now feels brand new again and that they are able to breathe once more. I applied this way of thinking to my own particular problem. I decided right there that I would change things, but how?

 I began in a modest way by looking at all my paperwork. I soon realised that a lot of it was either so old that it no longer served any purpose to keep, or that it was simply a copy of something that I already had elsewhere. From there I moved on to my desk. Here I moved everything off and either threw it away, or else put it in a place where I would be able to find it easily. Next came the bookshelf. I could see at a glance that this was not going to be an easy task by anyone’s standards, as it was so overstuffed with titles. Taking all the contents and stacking them on the floor. I put all the books into piles. Books on writing, or helpful, such as English. Quotations etc in one pile. Fiction in another, biographies in yet another. In a short time I had an eye view of just what I had in my extensive library.  My next criterion was how often I read each book. In the case of many it was an easy question to answer. The answer was never with quite a number, which amazed me I can tell you. All books that fell into this category went straight on my new pile, the for charity pile. My charity book pile soon began to grow by mammoth proportions, as soon as I included works I hadn’t read in years.

 I was surprised at how good this spring-cleaning actually felt. Doing this gave me a feeling of making a new start. I have now come to see just how stale my thinking had become. By getting rid of all my unused and definitely unneeded surplus. I had made a fresh start. Now I understand why so many people move their furniture around every so often. They do this in order to give themselves a fresh perspective on their day-to-day existence. Another very handy thing that happened as a result of this, was finding things I had thought lost forever?  This idea may not appeal to you. In fact for many this may be unnecessary. However for anyone who like me has been a victim of possessions becoming the possessor, it is really the only answer. Why not give it a try and see just how fresh and inspired doing this will make you feel.