Thursday, April 22, 2010

To Edit Mounds of Boxes

Well, I missed my Sunday blog posting time. I've had a death in the family last week and am working to get back into my normal routine (grandparent-in-law). To make a long story short I ended up working on something around the house which needed attention, thanks to one of my friends volunteering to help.

Unpacking boxes, yes boxes. My husband and I moved over the summer, and our back bedroom ended up being storage area central as we brought our belongings into the house. As I'd been going through some of the boxes they ended up in various stacks as well as being spread around the room. While the cats enjoyed climbing over and around them, the space wasn't fit for us to use. It was quite overwhelming glancing in that room, but my friend and I made short work of the mess. We went through various boxes, sorting things and condensing other things down into shared boxes. There is still plenty more for me to go through, but now most of the floor is visible and the remaining boxes are neatly stacked against two of the walls.

As I prepare for revising a first draft novel of mine I keep getting the feeling of looking at a messy room of boxes. Boxes with who knows what sitting in them, waiting to surprise me. And yes, possibly some good surprises in there as well. There is some of that nervous trepidation of looking at the room as there is to thinking ahead to my rough draft.

2 comments:

Karen Jones Gowen said...

Cool analogy! And I can imagine the cats had fun with the boxes just like they probably climb around your computer when you're writing! Or on your lap.

Claire Goverts said...

Thanks :) I've had both editing and unpacking on my mind long enough that they linked up.

The cats have had a blast with the boxes. Stacked or spread out on the floor the two of them would be climbing on them. With the boxes still to unpack, I've left them stacked by the window in that room, so the cats can look out into the backyard.

My one cat is a lap cat, and she does keep me company while I'm writing. She jumps up onto my computer tower, strolls across my desk, then climbs into my lap.