Head Space

This post is all about organisation, de-cluttering and finding some head space so that you can concentrate on your writing.
I decided last weekend that I needed to have a massive clear out.  I'm quite monkey-minded when it comes to my writing, and it effects my productivity - so, tidy house, tidy mind.

I bought a book called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo.  She is the creator of the KonMari Method and this book explains the concept.  To summarise the book, you have to basically throw anything away that doesn't inspire joy for you, and instead of sorting by location, sort by category (clothes, then books, then paperwork, etc).  This is hard, especially when you have two children and a hoarder husband, but I gave it my best shot.

I ended up with over 20 black bin bags and six boxes full of  'stuff' to be thrown away.  I can't tell you how good it feels.  I feel lighter, and the house gave a huge sigh of relief.  I completed all that in two days, then spent another two days cleaning.  Now, with only things that inspire joy around me, I'm much better able to concentrate on my work.  It has also made housework a lot faster to get through, because I'm not having to move clutter to clean or tidy clutter away - so I get more time to write!

Do you have any de-cluttering or cleaning tips to share?

Magic

I'm reading Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert, and I feel like I'm reading a letter from an old friend, or a younger me.

In my teens and early twenties, I saw ideas as magical entities, like fairies that floated around until you caught them and did something with them.  I had the notion that writing was magical - that magic played a big part in how ideas came to me.  Over the past decade, I've had to grow up, and during that growing up, I've lost that notion.  Don't get me wrong, writing still feels magical, but I have lost that feeling that magic is involved and the hard slog has taken over.  When I was 'on a roll', or 'in the zone', when the writing just flowed, I used to think of it like fairy dust had been sprinkled all over my keyboard, pen or notebook.  That was inspiration.

I love the way Gilbert talks about ideas and inspiration.  It's inspiring to me. Reading this book made me realise that I wasn't the only one to think of writing and ideas in a magical way.  If you haven't read Big Magic yet, I'd highly recommend it.

I still firmly believe that hard slog has a huge part to play in getting work done.  I'm a scientific type of person and don't necessarily believe that 'magic' is real.  It's just a nice way to think of it - don't you think?