Work Rooms Gone Wrong & Reference Texts: Wot I Did This Weekend
We’ve got a pretty good handle on the house most years, despite all of the incoming materials (sometimes up to 40 books a week) except for my office, in part because I’m not wedded to writing in there, so it invariably becomes this kind of catch-all storage space for stuff. And I don’t mean the review copies. I mean, the boxes and boxes of books I’ve written or Ann and I have edited. This past year we had so many darn books published that it overwhelmed us. Finally, finally got caught up, although still need to vacuum and replace that chair and paint the walls. Part of having an uncluttered mind is having an uncluttered office. Erm, please tell me others have similar horror stories of rooms gone wrong.
Now that I can reach my desk, here’re the reference books I stack there–general stuff, writing books, and then texts specific to future projects. Erm, the Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy book I was supposed to review but haven’t read it yet.
July 5, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Fascinating stuff. Thanks for the glimpse at your stack. One of my little projects right now is finding out what kinds of books/references authors tend to keep at hand.
I always see author’s displaying their shelves of beautiful hardcovers or worn paperbacks, but one rarely finds an author willing to display their copies of “Grammar for Dummies” or whatnot. This is close enough.
Many thanks.
July 5, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Well, there’s another whole shelf of stuff I have to keep in the guest room, and then about eight other titles I didn’t photograph because they represent what I think is a proprietary connectivity–i.e., you could look at them and begin to get the hint of the outlines of a very unique idea…
July 5, 2009 at 7:20 pm
I so love to see “before and after” pics, it’s like there is hope for all of us. I dream of having a workspace that isn’t the kitchen table or my bedroom. For now, just gonna keep dreaming and writing.
July 5, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Then I’m not alone! Yay!
July 5, 2009 at 8:27 pm
With all this cleaning, can another VanderMeer Book Sale be far behind?
July 5, 2009 at 9:13 pm
My writing space is in the downstairs room. At one point this was called the library (since it’s got two walls full of books), but now it’s the junk room. It’s right next to the garage, so if you’re cleaning out the car, that’s where stuff gets thrown.
For one day back in April, my desk was clean. So I took a picture and stuck it on my blog. Stayed tidy for nearly a week.
http://d1sc0r0b0t.blogspot.com/2009/04/my-happy-place.html
July 5, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Thanks for the pics of the room–evidence that any room can become useful after it has been dumped in and on for awhile. I am in process of cleaning my apartment, and the last room I have to tackle is the catch-all office, but I’m needing a good space to do more writing in, besides the couch –which has access to the internet feed. So it’s nice to know that there is hope. Mine has a bunch of laundry in it too!
And paper! How in the world did you decide what to do with all the paper!!?? And doesn’t that take a decade to sort? I dread going in there and having to make decisions about paper–paper that goes with teaching, paper for reading, paper that’s a bit of writing, paper that comes with bills; the paper amoeba waits to absorb me!
Any hints?
July 6, 2009 at 3:57 am
Finally! A hard evidence Jeff Vandermeer is a human. :D
July 6, 2009 at 10:37 am
I AM A HUMAN!
July 6, 2009 at 6:33 pm
I thought you had a meerkat’s work ethic. Am I wrong?
July 7, 2009 at 12:00 am
Uh – like my entire tiny apartment is like the before (or worse). We went from a large 2 bed to a small 1 bed with 2 people who love books and stuff and 2 cats. We gave away 20+ copy size boxes of books before we moved and still we are out of shelf space. We have still not quite gotten the stuff to storage space equation worked out.
July 7, 2009 at 4:06 am
m., have you considered using your kitchen shelves? Books go well with tea, cups and pots. I do not recommend the fridge…