Tuesday 17 July 2012

Things

I think I need to empty my study.

It's full to the brim with things I love like notes, Jack Skellington, books, pens, pocket watches, Christmas angels that are too pretty to live in a box all year, a glum photo of my gorgeous niece wearing butterfly wings, and several million works-in-progress.

I need to tear down my memo boards. All four of them.

They are covered in dozens of pictures from six different books (all in various stages of repair, some even waiting in the wings), notes I've scribbled of things wise people have said online, coach tickets, theatre tickets (or rather ticket as I'm going to said show alone - I can't decide if I'm brave or rather sad, perhaps both), and jingle bells (yeah, they never got put away either).

I need to empty my study because as the saying goes a tidy desk is a tidy mind and place a white sofa against a white wall and scribble words onto white paper or a white screen. Only, I don't do tidy, I do chaos.

I won't declutter my study, but a corner of space would be nice, somewhere I could lose myself in a story rather than twirling in my chair and making the little doctors, Tennant and Smith, walk like zombies across my desk.

Focus is nice. Maybe I'll sit in the empty bath and write and see how long it takes me to clutter that. Ooh, rubber ducks...

(P.S. there is no photo of the cluttered office because my camera is dead. "Phew!" said I).

13 comments:

Unknown said...

I'll bet it was a clean freak that made up that thingy about tidy mind/tidy desk, whatever. I believe comfort in chaos is a sign of inner fortitude. So there.

Kimbra Kasch said...

I am a clutter queen :D rubber ducks - how bout rubber frogs, seals and...

Simon said...

"If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?" -Albert Einstein.

Clutter away, O Mighty Cateness. :D

Cate Gardner said...

I bet it was too, Robert.

Ha! Me too, Kim

I heart that quote, Simon.

Diana said...

If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the sign of an empty desk?

Just saying... :)

Carole said...

Hurray for rubber ducks!

Simon Kewin said...

I envy you. I can't work amid clutter. You wouldn't believe how much tidying I have to do before I can write ...

Anonymous said...

Consider it inspiration/research for a cluttered study story? Dr Who Times Two versus the Rubber Duckies of Doom?

widdershins said...

Hi there ... just read your story in DSF ... fascinating concept ... I enjoyed it.

Anonymous said...

Most of the time I go to the theatre alone too.

We are brave, but maybe it's a little bit sad that we have to be :-)

Cate Gardner said...

Ah, but you probably write more than me because you're not fighting the clutter, Simon

You have to write that now, Ray. 'tis the law.

Thank you, W :D

You should make The Imaginary Girlfriend go with you, Pete

Katey said...

Kind of a shame about the no pictures thing though, because I can just imagine how fabulous all the little inspirations tacked to your memo boards are :D

Cate Gardner said...

They're all gone now, Katey. I reorganised and now everything is military like :O