Yes, I admit it. I might be a little preoccupied about the possibility of adopting a cat. Which, by the way, we just got the go-ahead from our landlord today which makes me ridiculously happy. I haven’t had a cat since our tuxedo cat Booker back in the 90s. I’ve been making do with spying on the neighborhood kitties in their windows or if I happen to be visiting a friend who has a few. A and I have been distracting ourselves by looking up things on Wirecutter and elsewhere about what the best cat bed, cat tree, food, litter, and so on would be. We’ve already started moving things around so the potential kitty won’t eat/knock over our plants or kick our Funkos under the couch. Yeah, we’re going full out here.
Meanwhile, Spare Oom is about to inherit a second monitor, which is something quite new here. I’ve always been a single-monitor person here, mainly because of the lack of room, but since A now has an extra one (her new job sent her one recently) she’s bequeathing her old one to me. Which is all fine and dandy, but as you can see in the banner picture on this here blog, I’m not entirely sure how I’ll set it up, considering that I have other things in its space. Do I get another riser? (They’re super cheap and I can get one up the street at Office Max.) Where do I move the whiteboard schedule? So many questions!
But of course for both issues, most of the changes will take place when the time comes. I actually enjoy the challenge, to be honest. It’s like when I got a new desk and had to move a few things around to make everything fit. Either way, it’s something new and exciting to look forward to!
This past weekend I did something I haven’t done in years: I ordered a new PC before my current one started dying a slow and horrible digital death. I’ve had my current one — an HP Envy 750-114 — since early 2016, and the average lifespan for my PCs is three to four years. It’s still working okay, though it’s starting to slow down to the point where it’s noticeable compared to my new laptop. I’m most definitely not a gamer, but I put my PCs through a hell of a lot, in between novel writing, internetting, song streaming, cd ripping, downloading, and everything else. I always need a PC with a good processor that will let me do all that multitasking. [Added to that, I also ordered a new monitor to replace the one I have…which dates back multiple PCs to 2006! This too works fine, but uses a cable that PCs no longer use. Both of these will be donated once they’re cleaned.]
It feels weird to do this, as I’m more used to squeezing every ounce of use out of it until it finally screams that’s it I’m done and refuses to turn back on. This time out, it’s the mouse and keyboard that are kicking it first. No big surprise, considering. I happened to have a spare wireless combo lying around the house so that’s taking its place until the new PC comes in.
I suppose this is all part of my ongoing KonMari Tidy-Up Project here in Spare Oom. I recently finished cleaning up all the old word files I’d had kicking around, deleting the duplicates (and there were MANY) and properly sorting them in subfolders. In the process I took out the old filing system on my Dropbox account and uploaded the new and much improved one. Suffice it to say, my DB account thus sent me a few emails asking if I was okay, considering I’d deleted a few thousand files within a few days. It’s actually kind of comforting that my cloud storage account keeps tabs like that. Anyway, all is sorted (literally) and things are much easier to find now.
SO! This of course means that I’m already planning out what needs moving from this PC over to the externals for temporary storage so I can upload them once the new PC is up and running. This, of course, is precisely why I had all those damn duplicates in the first place. Over the course of a decade and a half, I had the bad habit of taking this exact step…only to keep the backup files on cds or externals and never getting rid of them once they were safely back on the new main drive. They just all piled up after a while.
Hopefully this major cleanup — and a reminder to delete those backups once they’re good to go on the cloud — will avoid further confusion. Here’s to hoping it all runs smoothly!
Continuing the Great KonMari Tidy-Up of Spare Oom…
As of Thursday, one major chapter in my ongoing Spare Oom Cleanup Project has finally come to a close with the final sorting and filing of my writing! Everything’s in binders (or in some case, boxes) now and and in its own specific place.
Early, finished and trunked projects are over on the bottom shelf of the (Formerly) Forgotten Bookshelf, with journals and poetry notebooks on the top shelf with easy access from Fancy New Chair. All my artwork, maps and Murph doodles are finally in one place. Numerous dead pens have been given a proper sendoff along with disintegrating manila folders and Crap I Really Don’t Need to Save.
And of course I saved the best for last, and it took me a few days to go through it: The Mendaihu Universe Library! Heh. This is every scrap of paper, every story idea I scribbled down during a day job, every character reference, every outtake (longhand and typed), every chapter printout with revision notes, and One Clean Full Printout of every related project, from its humble 1993 beginnings all the way to the 2015 prep for self-publication. And let me tell you, there’s a lot less of it than there used to be! Many clean printouts have been sent to the shredder over the years, and I’ve finally managed to get them down to one single box full of them.
I really enjoyed going through all those folders and documents and getting them into chronological order. For a project that lasted 22 years (!!), it was quite interesting to see how it evolved from one version to the next. It started off as a science fictional re-imagining of my Infamous War Novel (which in 1993 was already nine years old!) but quickly took on a life of its own with all kinds of detours, rewrites and re-imaginings along the way.
I even managed to get some clarity on how it evolved from 1997-8 with The Phoenix Effect to 2001 with the start of A Division of Souls. I knew I’d tried submitting TPE, attempted to rewrite it, and also write a sequel to it, but I couldn’t quite remember the path all that clearly. Come to find out, a lot of it lines up with my day jobs shifting — leaving HMV in September 2000, starting second shift at Yankee Candle, and moving to first shift in April 2001. That last date pretty much coincides with the time I’d decided to nuke TPE and start from scratch with ADoS.
But the best part is that I was able to recalibrate my thoughts on the Mendaihu Universe and future plans for a Book Four. There will be a Book Four, no doubt about it…I’ve been planning to write one for ages, I just had to finish off all the other projects first.
And now I finally have the time and the inspiration for it!
Granted, I still need to finish off the final revision for Diwa and Kaffi and get that one submitted; that of course comes first. But this also means I can start playing around with story ideas, character development, and more. (And yes, there will be more Songs from the Eden Cycle mix tapes. Volume 5 was created last October, with more on the way.)
Yeah, I should know better than to announce my next project, as inevitably it crashes and burns, I ragequit it a few times, and put it on the back burner for a few more years. I’m not promising anything…so let’s just say that I’m willing to push this one pretty hard to keep it active this time out.
In my ongoing process of cleaning up my files and getting them in order, I’ve come across quite a few printed copies of the same stories. Which surprises me, because I though I’d thinned out that particular collection of papers back in 2006 when I got rid of all those three ring binders. Apparently not…?
And these copies of stories that I mailed off to publishers? Yeah, I definitely don’t need them. Hell, I don’t really need the rejection letters either, to be honest…most of those date back to over fifteen years ago and I’d like to think I’ve learned from my writing mistakes by now. I’m in 100% agreement with them for rejecting that short story from the mid-90s — it’s kind of embarrassing to read now, and I’m embarrassed to admit I even submitted such a piece of half-baked trash.
Which leaves me with…what? Oh, I still have some of the printouts saved. These are the ones I actually used for revision purposes, writing detailed notes in the margins. Those were helpful and I’m okay with those cluttering up my bookcase. And I’m definitely saving those scraps of paper where I’d originally come up with the idea during a slow moment at the Day Job. Those are always fun to look at and remember how it all started.
I found myself doing the same exact thing when I cleaned out my old collection of 3″ floppies. I’d saved a lot of my work on multiple disks over the course of a decade, and making duplicates seemed like a great idea, given how easily they’d get corrupted over time. Especially when I reused older disks. Some documents I had only one surviving copy, while others I’d had maybe three or four. (I narrowed these down by way of moving them to folders on my shared drive and deleting the duplicates via matching the timestamps. I may still have some duplicates, but it’s a hell of a lot more organized now.) Once that particular project is done, I’ll save it to my cloud account for security.
But with the paper versions…I’ve come to the conclusion that the most important things I want to save is the longhand notes and outtakes, the original sketches, the partial outlines…the work behind the finished product. Anything else can go either way.
Thankfully, I’ve kind of grown out of being a pack rat. I used to be a horrible one, both with my writing and pretty much everything I collected. Marriage and moving across the country made me rethink that. Hell, I’ve even cut down on my books! Seriously, though…I’ve still got my digital writings in their various versions (I save each new revision version under a different name so you can still see the work in progress.)
I no longer feel bad getting rid of that fifth print-out of chapter 3 of a book I’ve trunked over a decade ago…as long as I have it saved digitally, that’s good enough.
I’m still going through a lot of my old writings here in Spare Oom when I can carve out an hour or so here and there. It’s much easier for me to go through a small collection of folders than it is to attempt sorting the entire thing; less of a chance for me to feel overwhelmed, and definitely less clutter.
My trick this time out is that I’ve put each project or creation in its own plastic sheet protector, and labeling them with Post-Its noting the assumed dates. That way if I find the occasional misfiled item, I can pull out that plastic and put them in their proper place. Many of these will eventually be bound into report binders once I’m done.
I’m also doing a lot of shredding. Why save school notes from 1991 when all I really want to save is the original artwork or poem I’d written in the margin? Why save printouts of documents I know I still have in .doc files? Why save rejection letters from 1998? I have absolutely no use for any of it, and looking at them only elicits the reaction ‘why do I still have this…?’ so out they go!
And all those spiral notebooks with seven or eight pages (or surprisingly, sixty or seventy) that I haven’t touched in years? Time to tear those pages out, bind them in the plastic folders, and find a new use for the notebooks — or alternately, throw them in recycling. I think I’ve finally shaken off that habit of buying them and rarely using them, thankfully!
Most of my writing has already been sorted sometime back, but there are folders of randomness, most likely created under the guise of ‘I’ll sort it later’ or ‘etc’. Which of course means I’d never remember where it was. This time out, I’m sorting at the micro level. A map that’s actually part of my Murph Universe or the Mendaihu Universe or whatever writing/artwork project will of course go into those writing project binders.
I already know this is going to take a long time, quite possibly a few more months. I’m not rushing it. Keeping each sorting session – and cleaning up after each one – makes it a lot easier to handle. One section, one pile at a time, that’s all I need to do.
All this while working on the revision of Diwa and Kaffi, you ask? Yes! I can still find a few minutes here and there to sort through things. After I log off for the day but before I head out to meet A at the gym. My afternoon break. Slow Sunday afternoons when all my other errands are done. And I’m not doing this out of a sense of wanting to relive the past, or even because I might be looking for old notes and outtakes for a revived project. This is just part of my Tidying Up project.
That said, if I do happen to find some old and useful notes, I’m not going to complain. Something new might come out of it!
What I’m trying to avoid here in Spare Oom. Image source: Black Clover
I have what I’ve recently been calling The Forgotten Bookshelf here in Spare Oom; it’s hiding in a narrow spot between the far wall and the edge of my new chair. It’s not nearly as obscured as it used to be, so I can access a lot easier.
It was the first section of Spare Oom I chose to clean up in my latest KonMari bout of tidying up, because it had become an area where I stored a large amount of crap, and nearly all of it was contributing to my ‘out of sight, out of mind’ habits. I managed to get rid of about sixty percent of what was there and file the rest elsewhere. After much dusting and vacuuming, it’s now the home of my poetry and journal notebooks, as well as binders of older completed and/or trunked projects, most of which were hiding elsewhere in the room.
This could have easily become yet another Forgotten Bookshelf, if not for two things: my new chair, which I look forward to using multiple times a day for various things; and the fact that my current active journal and poetry notebook are over there as well. And since I make it a point during my morning break to write a journal entry, it’s reminding me every day that there are things over in this corner that I can use.
The other thing that’s working in my favor is that I’m planning out the way I’m sorting and filing ahead of time. I could easily pull out everything in this room and sort it into piles and then go through each one, but that would only add to the clutter. Instead I’m taking one or two piles of documents at a time and sorting through them. Once I’m done with one, then I’ll work on the next one. While I’m working on one section, I’ll make a few mental notes of which section I’ll attack next, once I have the time and the space.
This actually works quite well for a writer like myself, because every now and again I have an urge to look up an old outtake or lyric or what have you, and now it takes me just a few minutes to find it. As an added and unexpected bonus, it also cuts down on the chances of me falling down multiple ‘oh, I forgot about this!’ rabbit hole distractions!
In a way, I’m finally putting Everything In Its Right Place, which is what I’ve been meaning to do all along.
It’s not as if Spare Oom is a disorganized mess, far from it. I pride myself for trying to keep as much floor space open as I can in here. But there are little nooks and crannies here and there that have accumulated years of forgotten collectibles, documents past usefulness, and all sorts of other things collecting dust.
I made some headway last week by thinning out a massive amount of those old documents (including the 2003 online receipt for my first all-new, not-a-hand-me-down PC through Dell!!) and readying them for shredding. [Note: our local restaurant supply store up the way, Kamei, came in very handy for buying shopping bags in bulk to use for shredding disposal.]
Last night I also ordered a new chair to replace the very old love seat here. We’re getting it from Home Reserve, the same place where we ordered our living room couch. They’re sort of similar to Ikea in that your furniture is delivered in pieces and you put it together yourself, but instead of fiddling with screws and allen wrenches and whatnot, it’s all put together like a giant three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. The end result is surprisingly durable, nice to look at, and very comfortable. Plus storage areas under the seat cushions! Always a win.
Anyway! This is part of the Spare Oom Tidy-Up, sort of influenced by KonMari, so I can better utilize the space back here. My writing shelves are so disorganized they’re partly the inspiration for Samuel’s messy office in Diwa & Kaffi. I’d like to be more on top of the documents I no longer need. I’d even like to clean up the rear closet so there’s more room back there for long-term storage.
Why the cleaning? Because frankly, I’m kind of sick of finding corners with a year’s worth of dust, or having to move twenty different things and spend an hour routing through papers and boxes to find something for reference that I might be working on. And a VERY big reason: I have an extremely bad habit of being an “out of sight, out of mind” sort of person, putting things aside “for later” and never getting to them. And also, why the hell not? You know how it is…we all have that resolution to stay on top of these sorts of things but never follow through.
Now if I can manage to get the old love seat out of the room with minimal struggle…
I was looking through my two blogs and I realized that a lot of the subpages — the links, the Buy Stuff and Newsletter pages in particular — are woefully out of date. I haven’t touched them for at least seven or eight months. And to add to that, I haven’t set up a newsletter in probably well over a year.
That’s gonna change. Not right now, and not overnight, but soon enough. Over the course of the next couple of months I’ll be updating those blog subpages and restarting a newsletter. That will most likely be a monthly thing, a cross between a link aggregator for my blog entries and any news and upcoming events, and maybe a special passage or two.
So how am I going to update this? Good question. Between finishing off a novel, writing a second one, revising that first one, heading to the UK for a week and a half in August and following that up with Worldcon — not to mention juggling all that with my Day Job — I’m going to be ridiculously busy. But I think I can do it.
It’ll take time, and I’ll probably be exhausted by the end of it, but I’ll do it anyway. Because come on — I’m trying to be somewhat professional here, folks! I can do better than the bare minimum here. Y’all deserve it.
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