A Clean Desk is the Sign of a Sick Mind

Every time I start a new book, I clean off my desk. Okay, I’m a slob, I admit it. As long as the pile on my desk is lower than the height of the two monitors sitting on the edge of said desk, I’m fine with it. Sure, it makes it a bit difficult to actually write something with a pen and paper since there’s no flat surface available but I’ve gotten good at scribbling notes on a book on top of my lap while sitting on my exercise ball. I just have to remember I can’t bounce on my ball with my legs crossed. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve forgotten that while writing or looking up a word in my Oxford English Dictionary on my lap. I’m just glad that when I’ve fallen on my butt, the dog and cat were the only witnesses.

The sorry state of my desk drives my DH (dear husband or damn husband depending on my mood) absolutely nuts. He’s the type who can’t work if there’s anything on his desk. Me, I had to throw some paper around so I could write this blog. I’m telling you, it’s a sickness.

You’re probably wondering what the point of all this is. Well, I just thought I’d share what I’ve learned about myself while cleaning off my desk.

I can’t throw away Christmas cards: There are always those cards with pictures of the kids on them in cute holiday colors or sitting on Santa’s lap. I don’t want to throw them away but then what the heck do you do with them? Me, I had to give them to my husband to “put away.” He has no problem throwing things away, and though I’ll never ask what he did with them, I’m sure he tossed them in our circular file. We have a don’t ask, don’t tell policy when it comes to things like this.

I have a thing for the Levenger Catalogue—for those of you who have yet to experience Levenger, run don’t walk to Levenger.com. It's like porn for writers and serious book people. I can’t stand to part with my Levenger catalogues. I dream of buying all the wicked cool pens, the incredible bookends, and don’t even get me started on the bags, briefcases, and the paper…sigh. I gave a pile to my husband to put away, saving one at my desk in case of emergency.

I never realized it before, but I seem to collect notebooks, journals—leather bound, fabric, plastic with cool colors. I haven’t met a journal or notebook I haven’t liked and usually bought—hence the thirty or so I see on my bookshelf. The problem is that when I get them home, I don’t want to write in them—well, except for the Circa Notebooks sold by Levenger because you can refill the paper. I realize I’ve been collecting notebooks/journals since before high school and I’ve written in very few. Should I just toss them? Use them? They’re too beautiful to ruin with my horrible scribbles. I can see me leaving my kids a collection of empty journals, how dumb is that?

I also collect books. I don’t have much of a keeper shelf since there are only a handful of books I’ll ever re-read. It’s not that I don’t have books I absolutely adore, but I know those stories already and they’ll stay with me forever, so I’ve never seen a reason to re-read them. My problem is keeping books I know I’ll probably never read. I go to conferences and bring home boxes of free books and that’s without going to the actual publishers book signings. I come home and fill my bookcases, now filled with paperback lying on their sides and piled to the next shelf, two or three layers deep. With such limited reading time, I know there are books I will just never read. Still, knowing I will probably never read these books, I have a real problem parting with them. What? Am I afraid I’ll get through my TBR pile and not be able to get my hands on another book?

All I can do is thank God my DH thinks I’m wonderfully quirky. He calls me his cashew—his very expensive nut.

So what about you? What’s your desk look like? Are you a sick journal collector like me? What are some of your quirks?