‘Tis the season for clearing out and organizing, is it not?

Sure, there’s spring cleaning, but end-of-the-year clear-outs and New Year’s Resolutions are everywhere. One sign, in case you needed one, was the wall display at the grocery store. Gone were the Christmas dooddads and baubles! Instead were the very tempting storage containers. I don’t know what the evolutionary impulse is to make my brain think that just the right storage system will fix my life, but the impulse is there. And it is strong.

Another woman standing and looking at this terrific wall display said something about how they were tempting us. Somehow, we both resisted, but yet, here I am, hours later, still thinking about those clear boxes, baskets, and tiered stackers.

It helps that my organizing impulses are focused elsewhere. Ta-da! Lo! Witness the above pictures. I’m organizing my writing.

I’ve spent hours (I’ve lost count of them) going through google docs and Word docs and other random files on my computer and laptop hunting down every single story I’ve written in the last 20 years. (Some of the titles are terrible, but I’m not going to fix those yet. I will. Just not today.)

Then I copied and pasted every single story–unfinished, published, barely a rough draft–into one big document. (I’m keeping the originals. This is just to have them where I can find them easily.) Next was formatting. Copying and pasting from different documents meant they came with varying fonts and spacing. That was a few more hours.

Now, I’m going through the binder, which has stories with no digital copy at all because some files have been lost. I’m typing them into the big doc. That’s going to take a while, especially since I can’t resist rewriting as I type.

I’ll use the rest of the sketchbook to doodle, draw, and take notes on my writing progress heading into the New Year.

One important key to doing more creative work is making that work easy to get to. If you have to pull out a bunch of stuff, clear off a table, search for files, or make too many decisions, you’ll likely not do anything. Organizing can be a powerful procrastination drug, but it can also make a difference. That’s what I’m hoping anyway. (I’ll be sharing some of these old stories over on Patreon.)

In other weeknote news, it was, of course, Christmas. I received a lot books! If I make resolutions, one will be to read more in 2025–like I used to. I also received lovely earrings and clothes. But one gift made me cry. My son had a friend of his draw a picture of our Sweet Sadie. Rarely has a gift taken me so by surprised and packed such an emotional punch. Later on Christmas afternoon, we buried Sadie’s ashes. A dear friend had sent a floral arrangement in Sadie’s memory, and I cut a few bits of greenery and set them on top of the ashes in the small grave. Perhaps some think Christmas is a terrible day for a funeral, but I’m glad she could be laid to rest on a special day. And the family was together, and that mattered too.

Thanks for reading!

May you have a good end of the year.