Poetry Friday: Cleaning Up Cleaning Out
Linda at Teacher Dance is hosting Poetry Friday week. Hop on over there for the roundup.
Cleaning Up Cleaning Out
Last week, I posted about how I was cleaning up my office and my writing stuff. I had 14 plastic bins of old or half-finished projects in a closet. I had loads of files of old writing. ALL of you who commented told me to ditch the paper. None of you have missed the paper! This gave me the boost I needed to ditch all of my paper (or at least most of it).
Things I tossed:
- Dead projects. If I know this project is not something I’ll pursue again, I recycled it.
- Drafts of projects that I know I have in digital form. I have a Dropbox back up on my computer. I tossed about 12 drafts of a novel. I don’t think I’ll ever look at the old drafts again, and if I want to, I have them digitally.
- An entire recycling big worth of paper!
Things I kept:
- Projects I’m currently researching. I like to research and highlight on actual paper. If it’s a project I’m currently working on, I kept the papers–for now.
- There are two projects that I don’t think work in their current iteration. But as I was going through the papers, I had ideas for possibly resurrecting them into something totally different. Because my passion for those projects hasn’t faded, I’m keeping all of the research material for now. I got rid of all of the old drafts (they’re saved digitally anyway), and I can be free to start again or get rid of the project at a later date.
- Notebooks to process–For several months, I’ve been hoping to process some of the notebooks I have and put them into a searchable, digital form. I made a stack of them. I’ll try to go through one each week or so. Once those are processed, I’m going to recycle them.
- My 3 bins of drafts and research for One Step Forward. Because this book hasn’t been released, and I haven’t started giving presentations about it yet, I need to keep some things in these bins. I ran out of space in our large recycling bin, so I couldn’t ditch the papers yet anyway. I hope to go through these bins, toss unnecessary papers, and mine it for materials for school visits.
Honestly, it feels freeing. That big bin of drafts weren’t wasted. They’ve led to the projects that I love. They’ve made me a better writer.
Haiku of the Week
along the trail
green upon green—
stars appear
Photo Taken: May 11, 2024 at Royal Lake
Haiku Written: May 23, 2024
Poem as Picture Book
Round and Round the Year We Go
Written and Illustrated by Carter Higgins
Neal Porter/Holiday House, 2024
Round and Round the Year We Go is a 378-word poem that celebrates every month of the year.
Poetry Connections
- Internal rhyme
- Assonance
- Word Play
- Made-up words
- Alliteration
- Consonance
Links
23 Comments
Linda Mitchell
Oh, those stars appearing…wonderful! I’m such a fan of stars as imagery. I just finished ‘Writing for the Edu Market’ through Highlights. Loved it! It’s different but I can see how it helps a writer develop habits of research and writing that support the more creative side that I enjoy too. I hope you are finding time in your days to read and write. September has been pretty busy here…just finishing up week 2 of book fair. Phew!
Marcie Flinchum Atkins
Two weeks of book fair! Wow!!!! It’s been much busier than I’d like. I’m grateful for some downtime this weekend–mostly to recover from terrible viral laryngitis I got from the germfest where I work. 🙂
Linda Baie
Love the stars, too, Marcie, & that you’ve shown that “green on green” remains, at least for a while! Congrats for your massive cleaning completed. And now you also know, again, what’s available! I’m working on cleaning out old email on the laptop. It’s not easy to choose even if it’s very old! Have a lovely weekend!
Marcie Flinchum Atkins
Oh digital clutter! Still takes up space, just a different kind of space. 🙂
Tracey Kiff-Judson
Dead projects – interesting! I tend to leave a lot of things half-written. Perhaps I should clean out my computer closets too! I love “green upon green.” : )
Marcie Flinchum Atkins
On my computer, I have files for DOA projects. I won’t erase them. I like the evidence of them, but the physical paper and boxes had to go.
jama
Congrats on making such great progress with cleaning out papers! I know it does feel so good, and freeing . . .
Enjoyed your green on green haiku too, beautiful photo. I’ll have to look for the Carter Higgins book. Thanks for all!
Marcie Flinchum Atkins
Yes FREEING! I still have a couple more boxes to clean out, but I love my newly decluttered space.
Buffy Silverman
Love your green upon green–especially today when our yard is covered with dry orange maple leaves, falling early after a month of no rain. And maybe you will inspire me to get rid of all those ancient paper files in my office, with draft after draft that I will likely never revisit!
Marcie Flinchum Atkins
Do it! I got rid of so much! And yet, I still have most of it saved on my computer. With the exception of a few files I kept from the very beginning of grad school when I had digital files backed up on a…floppy disk!
Rose Cappelli
Bravo Marcie! Both for the cleaning out work and for the lovely haiku.
Marcie Flinchum Atkins
Thank you! It feels good to make progress!
Karen Edmisten
I’m a big believer in the truth that drafts are never wasted. They are always part of our growth. ❤️
Yay for all that organizing!
Your haiku and photo: as always, *chef’s kiss*!
Marcie Flinchum Atkins
Yes! They are always part of our growth!
Carol Varsalona
Marcie, your clean-out process is something I strive to do but got bogged down with other pressing issues. I am trying to get organized. Thanks for being a cheerleader for healthy living without be inundated with paper.
Your haiku photo entry is a delightful walk through nature. I haven’t gone on the nature trail in my community since I got sick in May because I am not sure I can walk several miles simultaneously. I am working on it and eager to see what is growing along the creek.
Marcie Flinchum Atkins
Baby steps! I haven’t been on super long walks since school started. I’m just lucky if I get to my weight-lifting classes. Here’s hoping for more strength for you for some short walks to start.
PATRICIA FRANZ
So proud of you, Marcie! There’s something so freeing about cleaning out…as though that closet or office file drawer is your mind, and now it is clear and ready to leap into a new season. 🙂
Marcie Flinchum Atkins
YES! Gretchen Rubin says “Outer order, inner calm.”
Laura Purdie Salas
Marcie, how fabulous to recycle all of that! I do most of my writing digitally, so I don’t accumulate as *much* paper. Still plenty, but could be a lot more overwhelming. But I recently spent a month or two going through all my *digital* files of writing projects. I officially abandoned some of them; others I thought I might like to circle back to, etc. I made a spreadsheet to track everything. We’ll see if I keep this up!
Marcie Flinchum Atkins
You know how much I love a good spreadsheet! Great idea!
Heidi Mordhorst
Marcie, I’m glad your clear-out went well for you and it sounds like maybe it wasn’t quite as painful as it was for me when I moved. I’ll send you a poem about that! Love your green stars and I’m very curious: what does it mean to “process your notebooks”?
Marcie Flinchum Atkins
Oh yes, would love to read your poem! I process my notebooks by going through them and typing up things I want to remember. For example, I take written notes when I read poetry. I have a document where I keep notes. Because it’s digital, it’s searchable, which is MUCH more usable for me than a stack of notebooks. I also process my haiku notebooks by typing up and tagging my haiku.
Heidi Mordhorst
I tried to comment but not sure it worked…Email me if not?