Friday Forays In Fiction: Workspace

A lot of my plans and goals relating to my fiction writing got put on hold while I was helping care for my Mom the last six months. Now I can put them back on project status. This past week has been all about getting my stuff unpacked and our room clean and organized again and my highest motivation to keep plugging away at it in spite of the heat and fatigue is the thought of re-engaging with my stories again.

Last November, during NaNo and around the week of my birthday, I had set a goal for the coming year of beginning to submit stories and poems. I got a printer for my birthday in mid November which couldn't be set up until I could rearrange things in our room to make a space for it but I couldn't do that until after NaNo. Then just before Thanksgiving I got the news of my Mom's fall, her broken hip and the stroke following surgery and everything changed.

My printer is still in its box. A box that is taking up valuable space in this small room I share with my husband and our cat. One of my immediate goals is to get that printer set up. I don't know how realistic it is to expect myself to get something ready to submit by the end of the year now though because in effect--with NaNo and the holidays--that means by the end of October only four months away. But at the very least, I would like to prepare a portfolio of all of my poems and fiction drafts just so I can see them. It has been years since I've made hard copies of my work. The first step is to get familiar with all the protocol again.

Or the first step after setting up the printer.

I have a spot in mind for it but it is in use at the moment. You can see it in the picture heading this post. Behind my desk is the closet in which you can see the top of a plastic drawer chest from Wal-Mart. That is my sewing and craft storage and I was already overflowing it before my recent visits to craft stores and scavenging among my Mom's remnants. All that stuff you see sitting atop the drawers is sewing and craft projects and supplies. If I can find other space for these things the top of that chest would be ideal for the printer.

But here's what I got to work with:


If I were sitting on the edge of the bed in front of my laptop the above image reflects what is over my left shoulder and the one below is over my right.


I must admit to a significant section of the room not pictured and that is the area below the TV which is sitting on top of an entertainment center the shelves of which are stuffed to the gills with misc. Some useful--like the printer still in its box--but most not. In fact the bulk of it is cardboard boxes containing either junk or smaller empty cardboard boxes which I've saved for their potential usefullness. I'm a shameless hoarder of containers of all kinds. Well I can't imagine any higher motivation for letting go of some of these than what is motivating me now to make space for my printer.



Above is directly behind me and the two below are directly to my left. The empty spaces on the shelves below are already filled now with the books I brought back with me and the review copies that arrived while I was gone.


Where you see the three purses sitting side-by-side below is the shelf reserved for library books and is now all but full again after my trip to the library yesterday. The purses only set there from the time we unloaded the car Monday morning until Wednesday afternoon when I got around to unloading them of the extra misc I'd packed in them.

This evening we bought a small drawer tower at Wal-Mart to sit beside my desk where that precarious cardboard box tower now sits. It's for typical desk items--pens, pencils, paper clips, post its, glue, tape, desk toys... Tomorrow Ed is going to the dirt track races with his folks and I'm getting serious about making space somewhere else in this room for those things on top of the blue drawers in the closet so that Ed can help me hook up my printer on Sunday.



In case you lost the thread here as to what all this has to do with 'Forays in Fiction.' Let me reiterate: I'm recommitting after a several month hiatus, to daily or nearly daily work in my fiction files. I'm committing to being ready to start submitting my work by the end of this year which involves re-familiarizing myself with making hard copy of my manuscripts. Which means using a printer. Which means making room for a printer in my workspace.