A Cluttered Desk is a Sign of...

Terry here: We’re showing our readers our workplaces and telling why it looks the way it does!

Here’s the way I’d like my desk to look: It's a jigsaw puzzle!

And here’s the way it really looks: At least it's how it looked a couple of weeks ago.

Every few weeks I tidy up my workspace. It feels wonderful. For a short time. Two hours later it’s exactly the way it was before I cleaned it. It appears that I am more comfortable with clutter:

A Cluttered Desk is a Sign of Genius

A Cluttered Desk is a Sign of a Cluttered Mind.

Which is it? Who knows?

So, why is my desk cluttered? It’s because when I’m concentrating on my writing, if something comes up that needs to be dealt with, I jot down notes about it, and fling the note to the side. And fling the next note to the side. And the next…you get the picture.

I currently have a pile of notes about ten deep. The pile includes minutes I took for two meetings. I wrote up the notes of one and sent them out…so why are the  notes still sitting on my desk? Again, who knows?

In addition, among the notes there’s an old grocery list, various notes for movies and TV shows people have recommended I watch.

There’s also, a list of books I want to buy from my bookseller, another list of Edgar nominees that I’d like to read, notes for some stocks I was looking up, and about a dozen pieces of paper with notes for things to “fix for my current work in progress.

There’s a stack of notebooks full of notes that I am looking to look at “someday.”

Books: There’s a copy of my second book, The Last Death of Jack Harbin, which I took down from the shelf for god-knows-what reason, and it’s still there. There’s a copy of Robert Fagles’ translation of The Aeneid, which I intend to read during quarantine. I’ve read the forward. It was interesting. There’s a book I started reading, The Silent Second, by Adam Walker Phillips, which I think will be entertaining, but had to put aside to read something I needed to blurb.  There’s a copy of Down & Out Magazine vol 2, edited by Rick Ollerman. And a copy of Christmas Trifle, by Heather Haven. I have no idea why either of these last two books are on my desk. But even after writing this down, I haven’t put them away. I’m gong to read them…someday.

There’s a stack of magazines with articles I intend to read for research. There’s a book of Sudoku puzzles, an empty box of tissues, a hand brace, an empty tin that held CBD gummies, a jar of hand cream, an extra pair of glasses, an African Violet that was given to me by a book club that I spoke to last December—and it still has one lonely flower. There’s a paperweight, with no paper under it.

And then there is the prize that I unearthed. I don’t know where it came from, but I have  a mystery story written by my son in grade school. I don’t know what grade it was from, but it’s entitled, “Mystery of the Circus. At the top he has written a note that says, “Louis—clown, Mo—trapeze artist. In the story it seems that the clown has gone missing. They track the “robbers” who stole him to a building. He’s tied up in a “dark room with lots of bats and cobwebs.” Luckily, he’s only tied up with “string around his neck,” so they untie him and take him back—and the circus goes on. A work of genius if you ask me.

I'd love to think that at some point I'll change my ways and have a neat and tidy desk, but I think I'm giving on it...at least for now.