A Mood of Faith and Hope

If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk? (Dr. Laurence J. Peter)

I’ve shared this quote a couple of times before here on my blog, One Writer’s Journal, but it keeps coming to mind since my desk can get cluttered in a very short amount of time. There are just so many books and papers and to do lists and notebooks to clutter things up. I have my laptop and my desktop on my desk. I have my cup warmer and a cup of tea. I have various pens and pencils. I have bookmarks and notebooks. I have my name book that is falling apart and is held together now with a rubber band. I have a box or two of birthday and get well cards I send out to church friends. I have a little clock that needs a battery. I have last week’s church bulletin and maybe the week before too. I have a devotional book or two. Bibles are on the shelf below my keyboard. I have a few letters and bills. Well, that’s some of the stuff anyway. My desk has a way of getting piled up while I’m busy trying to meet a deadline. It’s almost like somebody sneaks in while I’m not looking and drops things on my desk. I’ve seen other writers’ work spaces and everything is neat. Organized. Perfect. Oh well, I’m not other writers.

I’m working on a new book. I was ready to really dig in and get to know my new characters when I got the galleys to be edited for next May’s book, The Song of Sourwood Mountain. (I am going to do the cover reveal for it on Sunday right here. So stay tuned.) So, I had to let those new characters step off stage while I went back to those characters I came to know so well while writing the last story.

I did clean some things off my desk last week. A little bare space seems necessary for the start of a new book. Maybe I need that for a sign that there’s room for those new ideas and characters.

While I don’t pretend to compare my books with Pearl Buck’s, I do understand where she is in the following quote.

In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write. (Pearl S. Buck)

Beginning. You can almost see that stack of paper awaiting the stroke of her pen. I understand the ream of paper. I used to love going to the office supply store to pick out those boxes of paper to begin a new book.  I know the feeling 500 fresh sheets of paper used to bring me as I rolled that first blank sheet into my typewriter and typed “Chapter 1.” Now I look at a blank computer screen. It doesn’t evoke quite the same picture or feeling, but at the same time an almost unlimited space is out there that I can fill up with my stories.

So I did manage to clean some things off my desk or at least move them from here to there. It doesn’t seem quite as cluttered. Perhaps my cluttered desk does signal a cluttered mind, but I don’t know that I want a “clean” mind. A writer needs some clutter. I may need to push it aside so I can catch a clear vision of my new story, but I will have to reach back into that clutter to pull out emotions and experiences and things lurking back there in my subconscious that right now, I have no idea are even there. But I have that “mood of faith and hope” that the right words for a new story will surface once I’m brave enough to type Chapter 1.

I’m working on a new historical. And so this last quote speaks to me.

The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past where time hovers ghostlike.  (Ralph Ellison)

That’s what I’m doing now at the beginning. Reaching back into the past. Finding out things. Stirring them into the murky soup of story making and hoping for a boiling plot of true events peopled by my fictional characters.

Now despite Christmas not so far away and this or that written on dates in my calendar book, I do have the goal of writing some of this book before another year comes calling.

Is this time of the year a busy time for you? Are you good at keeping the clutter away from your work spaces?

As for the photo up top, I was too embarrassed to show you my still somewhat cluttered desk. Instead, here’s a picture of my desk very uncluttered with my sweet Oscar keeping me company at my desk a few years ago. And now, here’s a picture I took a few minutes ago of one of my writing companion these days.  Marley snores away while I type. As always, thanks for reading!