Comments on: Decluttering, Literally and Literarily

By: Nan

Nan — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 02:21:55 +0000

In reply to Sue Cross. Hi Sue, thanks for stopping by! Wow, that's quite a project! Good luck with flash fiction!

By: Nan

Nan — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 02:20:41 +0000

In reply to Donna Brown. Thanks for stopping by, Donna! That is a long book, but it takes what it takes to tell the story, right? Best of luck to you with your book!

By: Donna Brown

Donna Brown — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 20:50:10 +0000

Decluttering is crucial in one’s own life as well as in sharing a story! I was last year where you are now in selling our house in Colorado of 26 years, giving away, throwing away and selling most of our worldly possessions in the process. We had a lot of clutter, 3 levels of our house worth! We kept enough to supply our 23 foot travel trailer and stored the rest in 2 small storage sheds, and since last July we haven’t looked back… well, maybe a few peeks here and there! You are right that it felt so good to finally declutter after so many years of accumulating!
In regards to books, we accrued quite a few, albums too, and gave most of them away to book stores and record stores and sold at least 100 or more albums at a record convention. And yes, in the writing of my own book, an autobiography, I did get quite wordy! After several professional and self-edits, I had to rewrite several chapters. I even deleted approximately 6000 words from the story, yet it’s still a bit lengthy at 124K. It’s been an interesting life! Thanks for your article and best of luck decluttering and selling your home!

By: Nan

Nan — Sat, 13 Oct 2018 12:11:43 +0000

In reply to Cathy Shouse. Cathy, thanks for stopping by! Yes, it is a balancing act in both life and in writing! I'm finding lots of interesting stuff I knew I had tucked away in closets, but I had forgotten about. Most of it can go because my kid sure doesn't want it and if I've forgotten it, then it's meaning to me is pretty much gone as well.

By: Cathy Shouse

Cathy Shouse — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 14:00:33 +0000

Love your thoughts on this topic! Decluttering our home is something I’ve had to get better at, due to a “kid” moving across the country and basically leaving his bedroom untouched and filled to the brim. LOL For me, decluttering my writing is familiar in my work as a journalist and I’m working on it with my fiction. Decluttering in life and writing are a balancing act, aren’t they?

By: Sue Cross

Sue Cross — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 09:49:59 +0000

I enjoyed reading your article, Nan and can certainly empathise with you regarding decluttering but more in the literal sense than the literary one! Why do we hoard so much in the West? We work hard to make money to buy things that we don’t need and then have the daunting task of getting rid of it when we downsize. In the Spring my husband and I put our Spanish house on the market in order to spend more time in the UK. Two hundred books found their way to a local charity shop, together with bags and bags of clothing. It felt surprisingly cathartic to say goodbye to so much stuff and we only shipped back a few treasured possessions. Back in England and still in the decluttering mood, I started the whole process again. So far I haven’t missed anything.
On the literary front and still in my frenzy of tidying up, I decided to collate, delete and edit two hundred short stories that had been idling on my laptop for years. The result is my latest book of concise and I hope, not too wordy compilation of flash fiction titled ‘Stories to Go.’