De-Cluttering

(I'm afraid I'm going back to the trivial here, as I couldn't think of a way to follow Julie and Anna's moving posts - sorry!)

It’s a new year and I’m sure we all made some resolutions – some easier to keep than others! I broke my first one within hours (it IS hard to stay away from the chocolate in the fridge when it’s calling out to you!), but my second one I’ve actually put into action – de-cluttering.

I started with the cupboard under the stairs. What is it about cupboards under stairs? It’s just so easy to chuck stuff in there and forget it ever existed. Until it gets full, that is, and you can’t open the door without something falling on you and if you want to find something, well, forget it!

Cupboard finished, I decided to tackle my office. I call it an office, but really it’s just an alcove off the bedroom. And it’s truly amazing how much you can fit into an alcove if you try! I’d been collecting stuff there for six years without a clear-out. It was definitely time to do something about it.

A couple of weeks later and I’m still not quite finished, but almost. I can see the carpet, the files are all tidy, I have a new bookshelf which isn’t even full yet (hooray, good excuse to buy more books!) and I found some things I’d forgotten I had. The dust is gone (temporarily) and it feels really good! So there are still a few piles of papers to sort out and dispose of, but it was really satisfying to carry out five or six bags for recycling – cleansing, both for my office and for my mind somehow. And if you’ve got a pile of magazines (unopened, still in their plastic wrappers) that you subscribed to three years ago and haven’t read by now, then surely you don’t need them? I figured not, and they’re gone.

This kind of spring cleaning mania is supposed to be something that grips mothers-to-be in the weeks before their baby is due. Can’t say that happened to me (being the size of a whale isn’t really conducive to bending or carrying stuff if you ask me), but I know now what they mean because all this clearing out and de-cluttering has made me feel ready to sit down and produce something – some fresh writing. Does that count? Maybe it’s not quite the same, but writing a book feels a bit like giving birth sometimes, so I think I’ll keep the analogy. And I know lots of authors clear out their offices each time they finish a book in order to start afresh as it were – from now on I intend to do the same.

And speaking of new years – apparently it’s the Chinese Year of the Dragon coming up, and not just any Dragon year, but a very special one – Black Water Dragon, which apparently means it’s going to bring unexpected happenings. Let’s hope they’re good ones for all of us!

Did you make any resolutions, and if so, have you kept them? Let me know while I’m still feeling smug about keeping one of mine (even if I did eat a lot of chocolate in the meantime ...)

And please come back on Sunday to hear from Liz!