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Monday - show me your desk! More clutter and an unread book on mastery.



Does the clutter ever do? No. My desk is normally used as extra storage or an temporary space when I'm tidying up. Anyway, the weekend was hectic due to busy work, then a day trip to up country to Leeds, so I only had Sunday to myself. And on Sunday, I was updating the blog as well.

So shall we?

Starting from lower left handside and working upwards - clockwise. To digress, it's funny how all clocks are now digital so in a way the whole clockwise, or anti-clockwise thing may be redundant for a younger generations. I remember being taught to tell the time. I was really bad at it. But it's kinda interesting because some people use it for directions as well. On you'll see that person in a three o'clock direction - that way you automatically know they will be on your right hand side etc...Anway back to the desk.

There are a pile of books and folders. The wire bound is just a notebook for stuff, yeah, stuff. Then on  top of that are my course notes for plotting, setting and characterisation. Yes, I love courses, which you'll probably have figured out if you read my blog. But I use them to write, and it's also habit. I don't go on really expensive courses nor do I have expectations. The course thing started off with me going to evening classes rather than sitting in watching TV. I also do used to do courses in other things, so public speaking, cooking, drawing, music - basically anything interesting - so it's just what I spend my cash on. That and food.

Let's free-style. I'll just go into the flora note books, those are from Waitrose and also contain notes, this time from workshops, I've attended over a three year period - and cheating because I said I was going clockwise but I've decided to just deal with the lower part of the desk, the pink folder contains my long-suffering manuscript of Leyton and Angelica. Plus scores of notes from the Holly Lisle Course and a few notes from the Curtis Brown course. Yeah...it's courses' note galore on my desk.

One thing about courses, though I love courses, I've never quite finish a body of work on one especially a novel, and with experience I realise its also good to have another support, if you can't finish  your novel or polish your story. Most have workshopping spaces for ex-students, some students get together but I've found my online workshop to be great at that. That is Scribophile, and if you can't afford course, and don't mind learning the hard way,  it's worth joining a writing group, gritting your teeth, filtering through all the feedback and pushing on.

Let's go upwards now. Back to left hand side, there is a calculator, a soft toy which I thought of maybe taking as a mascot on London Hood tours to include in pictures. But that will just make me look weird so no. Or maybe.

Next to that is my pen holder which is a beer mug from the continent, my pencil case with lots of pens and pencils and felt pens I rarely use. Then a borrowed book on Mastery. I borrowed that from a big boss at work just because. Well, he was having a clean out and I asked if I could borrow it because I thought it would be good fun to tear it apart for my blog but I haven't had the time to read it fully and make notes. The one thing I need to focus on is editing my novel...

That's it. Have a great week!




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