I’m thinking about cleaning out my idea bank. It is a knee-quaking concept. Ten years of scraps, plots, extracts, phrases, titles, names, research and character studies are lovingly tucked away or carelessly crammed into various crannies and boxes and drawers. They contain a lot of good ideas and solid or beautiful writing. There are threads of greatness, however frayed and dirty and dusty; there’s a lot of crap, too, or things that I have outgrown or moved past. Legal pads, notebooks, torn napkins, loose leaf paper. Written in pen, pencil, marker, lipstick. It’s all there, waiting to be addressed. Faced. Embraced or conquered. Trashed or saved. Crumpled mounds of surprise or disgust. “I’m this good?” or “What shitty shit of a writer came up with this?” It’s all conjecture, of course, as I haven’t read any of it; but I know the odds, and they are even. The summer is young, and the days are long. I can do this.
A Small Press Life: Books. Art. Writing. Life. Tea.
Not just a blog, a philosophy
A Small Press Life: Books. Art. Writing. Life. Tea. 
When you finish, will you please come to my place? 😀 Haha, I have a closet full of stuff. You are braver than me. I’m not ready yet.
LikeLike
I am only clearing out the studio and attending to dormant writing. I actually hate cleaning and major organization projects!
LikeLike
I would never deliberately throw old work out, but I did realize after about two years and fifty notebooks that I couldn’t read my own handwriting. I now write in block capitals.
LikeLike
I don’t plan on throwing out anything long enough to be considered a work in progress, no matter how dormant. But I have way too many scraps of words, phrases, etc. (you know the drill, you read the piece) clogging up space in my studio. A lot of it will be condensed, but some of it will be tossed. Even the greatest of writers threw things away, sometimes completed manuscripts; I agree with Norman Mailer that certain writings have their time and, once that time has passed, they are not meant to be (although I have a hard time putting that conviction into practice). I’ve also no wish to horde every word I have ever written in some misguided hope that whatever posterity my work may find, automatically renders all of my words good or valuable or precious. They aren’t, and some of them can go away without affecting anything. Errant phrases and orphaned paragraphs of value will certainly be added to my notebooks, as will valid plots and names, etc. This is something I am driven to do because the sheer enormity of my disorganization is weighing on me and affecting my ability to function fully as a writer. I’m usually extremely organized, so this situation is just too much for me to handle. I cannot go forward without effecting this change.
LikeLike
Yea, I understand, sometimes you just gotta clear the table. Sometimes I work best when I’m trying to avoid the chaos around me. It can be that a lot of chaos forces me to focus on one thing in order to ignore all the crap.
LikeLike
I can do that sometimes, too, and quite well. Unfortunately, this is so out of hand that I have a compulsion to clean things out so I can move on with my writing. I hope it works.
LikeLike
I hope it works too. Everyone’s gotta to do what they gotta do to get the job done.
LikeLike
Thank you. I’ll know within a few weeks, I imagine.
LikeLike
This sounds like a great idea. Now may be the time to dig these ideas up and see if you’re ready to work with them. Rock on!
LikeLike
Thanks, Kev! Easy idea, difficult in practice. It is my main creative goal for July, though.
LikeLike