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This week: Clean Out Your Writing Closet! Edited by: Fyn  
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Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing. ~Phyllis Diller, Phyllis Diller's Housekeeping Hints, 1966
Housework is something you do that nobody notices until you don't do it. ~Author Unknown
Our house is clean enough to be healthy, and dirty enough to be happy. ~Author Unknown
The best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes. ~Agatha Christie
There's nothing to match curling up with a good book when there's a repair job to be done around the house. ~Joe Ryan
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To get to my desk to write this, I had to shimmy sideways through the computer room door, step over a short pile of boxes, wend my way through the narrow path left to get into the room and move two more boxes off my desk chair. We were looking for our marriage certificate yesterday and thought maybe, perhaps, hopefully, it somehow got stuck in one of our 'odd-ball mail, stuff-we-don't-know-what-to-do-with, doesn't have a place to live' boxes that routinely get shoved in the computer room closet when my daughter-in-law cleans the house. After the boxes, bags, extra table leaves, chalk boards, curtains and forgotten Christmas presents were scattered all over the room, we came to two conclusions: No certificate being one and the other being that we really need to clean out the closet. (Knowing us, someone will get sick of the obstacle course and just throw it all back in as is.)
In the process of our frantic looking, however, we did find some cool 'stuff' we didn't know we had. This comes as a result, I think, of having a closet that we really don't 'need' which becomes a repository for stuff we don't know what to do with and it is easier to stick it out of sight there than to figure out that we probably just need to throw it away. But we did find cool stuff. Being as I've never emptied it out in the five or six years I've been here, it was fun to hit bottom and pick up something on the floor.
"Hey, Hon? You never told me you had skeletons in your closet!"
"Huh?" He turns to look as I hold up an old fashioned, wrought iron skeleton key.
Thought: Never, ever remove stuff from a haphazardly piled closet one side at a time. Hubby reached in for something or other that caught his eye and the entire right-hand side of the 'pile' avalanched down into the previously emptied left side. He turned around, looking at me as innocently as could be and said, "I think we have a ghost in there too."
Could well be. We found his parents' birth certificates from the 1800's, an anchor, two jackets neither of us remember owning, three puppy toys, a tangle of various computer-y type wires, curtain rods, nine--NINE! outdated phone books and the aforementioned forgotten Christmas presents that will be recycled next year, unless, of course, I've forgotten them again.
But as I sit here trying to ignore the mess, I got to thinking of my musty store of cached writing ideas that are stuffed into every conceivable nook and cranny in my brain, that I really need to clean out that closet as well. I'm quite sure there are perfectly usable ideas floating around in there. I should write them down somewhere, I should organize them in some fashion, I should go through them keeping some and tossing others. Ah! I should plan a garage sale of writing ideas! You know the drill.. . . this? Nah, I want to keep that. This? NO! I'll never part with that. This? No, that's garbage, just throw it out.
I do write down writing ideas occasionally. I've got notebooks full of them. Uh-huh. And where are those notebooks? Who knows. I've got several, but I only know where the current one is. Or I did. That was before the contents of the closet were scattered all over this room!
Seriously, when writer's block strikes, how much better it is to be able to peruse those quickly scribbled ideas and have inspiration strike. Of course, you'll probably also experience a moment where you wonder exactly why you wrote down 'striped feathers and river rocks.' No clue!
It is Spring! Doesn't matter if there are three to five inches of snow expected tonight (as we have here in Michigan). It is time for some authorial spring cleaning!
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atwhatcost offers:After a week, I've accepted the loss... By now, you probably know what I'm going to say. That's not entirely true. We may know our loved one is dead after a week, but we also don't know. Sometime, you will find yourself reaching for your phone or keyboard to contact her about something minor, and be jarred when you remember she's not there. Accept? Eventually. Like? Never. As writers, we'll notice the pattern changes, but we will use our sadness in words, so sometime, when the pain subsides, we can remember the feeling for others to relate to. Sorry for your loss, but give yourself as much time as need. Yes, life goes on, but it goes on minus one important person.
Yes. Yet she's still here in so very many ways!
Noelle  says: This was a great NL! I found all of the questions you posed regarding character action and behavior following a death to be very helpful for my own novel--in both character and plot development. Thanks!
I'm glad you found it helpful! *smile*
monty31802 wrote:Many good points made in this Newsletter
Thanking you :)
kayz says:I really enjoyed reading this newsletter. I have been brooding on a novel for several years now. Until recently, I hadn't come up with 'that' story that would work, that would be original and compelling. Since I had finally come up with the story, I was truly excited. Unfortunately, small details are keeping me from moving forward. The biggest problem is the beginning. I used the first chapter to show the death of a character, and have been pulling my hair trying to figure out what my main character will do next. Your newsletter has helped me.
Smiles....very cool! Email it to me when you finish it!
Tadpole1  announces: Hi Fyn, I killed a character today, and it wasn't pretty.
Love it!
NickiD89  says: I'm so sorry for your loss, Fyn. But the fact that the passing of your dear friend and mentor has had a positive impact on your current writing projects surly has her smiling down at you. I felt so inspired, reading your offered ideas about characters and how they act at a funeral. Great stuff!
Thanks :)
Mara ♣ McBain  says: This was a beautiful tribute to your friend. It is obvious she will always be with you.
Yes, she will. But then those special folks never really do leave us, do they? Their essence seems to echo onwards!
billwilcox comments: Heartfelt, fyn, I loved your honesty.
Thanks.
James F. Dracon writes: Dear Editor, Thank you so much! It seems strange to thank you for writing a piece about death, but I've been working on a short story, a sequel actually. Your words helped me to remember what I need to have happen, due to the circumstances created by the first story (The main character's wife dies). So thank you.
You are most welcome! It all is about writing, after all!
Thanking all for their lovely words of sympathy and understanding. Each step we take in this life but adds to our journey, gives depth to our perspectives and gives us something else to write about! |
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For Authors: April 20, 2011 Issue [#4347]
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