Monday, August 6, 2007

Lots of Endings...

Fool's Gold my BIAW (book-in-a-week) project that became a BIAM (book in a month) is finally done! The first draft anyway~ it took me a little longer than I had hoped because my best-laid plans for the weekend were waylaid by a garage sale. My "other" daughter, Lizzie, and her roomates have decided the trailer they rented off Lizzie's dad is too expensive (especially now that a roomate moved out). So, Lizzie's dad is going to sell it...the tricky part is that he's in Alabama and she's here in California. So it fell on her and her roomates to clean up the trailer and the shed.

Oh, MY! I don't think I realized that my friend Ellie, my other daughter's mom, was such a packrat~ it was very sad to go through all of her things this weekend with an eye to selling or giving them away. There were boxes and boxes of her precious sewing patterns, sheet music, fly fishing paraphanelia (Ellie used to tie flies for her brothers and those flies are incredible works of art), and her collected dolls and books....Lizzie can only keep so much of it, especially now that she has a life and a child of her own.

Now, I'm a pitcher. Even when editing, I've noticed I'm ruthless at cutting out parts that don't work for the story. And although I keep all those fragments until the book is published, I have no problem hitting the delete key.

As for the stuff around my house, if it's not been used for a year, tied down, or of enormous monetary or sentimental value, I'll throw it away with no remorse. My husband and my kids are the packrats of the family. And I must say that after going through all of the boxes this weekend, sorting what to keep, what to sell, what to give away, and what to throw away....My husband vowed to start going through all the boxes in the garage. Well, as soon as he has some shelves built for the stuff he needs to keep. Sigh.

So...are you a pitcher or a keeper??

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm a packrat among packrats. It's pretty bad. Between the four of us we have tons of junk; over ten last time we had it weighed.

Unknown said...

I have boxes in my basement that have survived at least half-a-dozen moves. The contents are unknown at this time. I was supposed to look through them this summer. Ha.

Ana said...

Heck no, I throw everything out. The only exceptions are my books, especially the ones that are autographed.

lacey kaye said...

Absolutely pitch. I can't stand to have even one key on my key ring that doesn't serve a purpose. I throw things away without remorse, as you said, and if I have to repurchase it, oh well! That so rarely happens it's not even worth worry about.