My home office is a packrat’s dream. And a neat freak’s nightmare. Not just the physical part of my office either, but the virtual as well. Even my laptop is cluttered with the verbose debris of my entire writing history. Hundreds of files of my started stories, of random chapters, of ideas that never actually took shape into something worthy of submission.
Why can’t I throw away anything I’ve ever written? Especially those actual paper files, stored in an actual filing cabinet, so many folders crammed with old stories from, I’m not kidding, the 1960s when I was a preteen and teen. And so many ‘compostions’ from elementary and high school. Boring typewritten essays from university. What good can all this possibly serve me in the future?
One of these days I just might succumb to some sort of psychological guilt trip as the piles grow and the sheer volume of it all finally takes its emotional toll. What do they call it in Scandinavia? Swedish Death Cleaning? Does that count for disposing of old story ideas that never got developed? For half-written poems? Essays that never got published? Does it count for posterity? Surely my kids will want all of this someday. (Me, laughing right now.)
One of the pieces of advice I always proffer to budding writers is: save everything you ever write, because you never know when you’ll need it. Hmmm. Maybe that was a bad idea after all. Is it possible to become bogged down in the detritus of your own creative drive? Sometimes I’m overwhelmed by the thought of how much of my time would be devoured if, in fact, I actually forced myself to sit down and sort through it all and throw some if it away.
Just to imagine opening those desk drawers and filing cabinets and beginning to sift through several decades worth of material that I could never bring myself to part with. I’d be forced to dig through the burgeoning piles on my shelves and surrounding me on my desk, the newspaper clippings with story triggers, the stacks of old notebooks and file folders with scribbled ideas, all of which are beginning to severely limit my workspace; just the thought of it positively numbs me. I’m paralyzed—I can’t bring myself to get on with it and start flinging. And then there’s those daunting computer files. So many of them that I would have to open, peruse, then likely decide that maybe it’s a pretty viable idea after all, and surely I’ll find the time to get back to it someday. Hah! As if!
In Wikipedia, the characteristics of a compulsive hoarder are:
• the acquisition of, and failure to discard, a large number of possessions that appear to be useless or of limited value
• living spaces sufficiently cluttered so as to preclude activities for which those spaces were designed
• significant distress or impairment in functioning caused by the hoarding
That’s me! It fits the description of my desk! And just the fact that I’m writing this and stressing out over it is an indication that I’ve been besieged by it? Isn’t it? Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating. But I’ll bet I’m not the only writer who has this problem. Has anyone else out there saved absolutely everything they’ve ever written? And I mean everything, dating right back to the very first story they ever wrote in grade three called ‘A Narrow Escape for a Mouse’? (I was already obsessed with mysteries and thrillers back then, I guess.) Please say ‘yes’, so I’ll know I’m not the only one with this peculiar compulsion!
In a way it’s served me well. Way back when I was doing frequent school visits, I would take along my scrapbooks of ‘everything I’ve ever written’ to show the students, and it’s truly an asset when the kids asked me how long I’ve know that this obsession to write has been my calling. In the past I’ve even ‘recycled’ old stories that I started maybe 30 years ago and never came to fruition. Using all of the creative skills I’ve developed in the interim, I’ve revised them and subsequently had them published.
Hmmm. Come to think of it, maybe this compulsion to hoard my copious collection of words and sentences isn’t such a bad thing after all! So I’ve decided I’ll live with this curated mess. After all, there might be a goldmine buried under here somewhere.
Now where did I put that story I started writing in 1985?
.jpg)
Interesting. I recently went into an old file cabinet and found a lot of old writing. I'll be recycling it one of these days into stories
ReplyDeleteI moved great distances by plane many times in my life, only taking with me one suitcase. It limits the amount of clutter. When I left my husband's house, ten years ago, for a tiny apartment, I only took with me the minimum to function, leaving behind an entire library. I now do my research online. I travel light. I look to the future. The ideas I had in the past belong in the past. I'm definitely not a pack rat. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDelete