(no subject)

[mamadeb]

Three hours. She just spent three hours in my kitchen. Which is gorgeous now.

And she's moved to my bathroom now.

In terms of housekeeping - I lose.

ETA: Bathroom is now glowing. And, yeah. I win. And she wins because I paid her for her time and effort. I don't need to see dirt.

Comments

Writing and Housework

[kressel.livejournal.com]

As I've said before, I'm not a terrific housekeeper. A few years ago, when I was much much more prolific in my writing than I am now, I downright neglected my housework, and it showed terribly. I really had to get myself in balance, and the book Becoming A Writer by Dorothea Brande is what did it.

It's a very psychological book. Brande divides the writer's mind into two main tools, unconscious and conscious, or imagination and inner editor if you prefer. Much of the book is about balancing those two forces, but she also suggested something she called a wordless vacation.

Our minds, Brande states, work in language. So when you're at a stuck place in your writing, a good way to generate ideas is to take a wordless vacation. Take up some wordless hobby, like gardening, and throw yourself into it. While you're doing it, you shouldn't talk on the phone or listen to talk radio. You shouldn't even listen to music with lyrics. Once you have isolated yourself into this wordless state, your own mind will fill the gap, and voila! Now you know where to take your story next.

When I first read that I thought, "Oh, like I have time to take up a new hobby," but then I realized that cooking and cleaning are wordless activities I have to do every day. Since then, some of my best ideas have come to me while chopping vegetables or doing dishes. And it has also given me incentive to clean when it was previously lacking.

Of course, I think you should still keep your cleaning lady. But while you're de-cluttering, think your own thoughts.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

You can do that? My goodness.

When I chop vegetables, I plot stories or free associate about domestic history or plan what else I'm going to do - and I can't spare attention from the chopping much because knives=sharp. (Hands=many, many tiny knife and burn scars. I call them occupational hazards.) Or where I got the idea for this meal or...my goodness, endless things. Social history is a big one.

As for decluttering - it's constant thought. "Do we keep this or not? Where does it go if we keep it?"

If I gardened, I'd talk to the plants if nothing else. The hardest thing to do at night is turn the words off.