Decluttering: Is it Just the Attic? By Rosemary Johnson

 A few days ago my husband and I started the monumental task of clearing out our attic, the first time since moving into our current house in 1988, with two very young children, who are now thirty-six and thirty-four and left home eons ago.  We came across:

• orders of service from Westminster Abbey for the five years my son was in the Westminster Abbey choir;
• son’s and daughter’s exercise books from primary school;
• daughter’s folders from secondary school, annotated with names of bands because by then we were much ‘cooler’;
• ‘Shoot’ and ‘Match’ football magazines;
• five folders of teacher training ‘evidence’, every page in a separate plastic wallet. 

 

Every item evoked intense and personal memories.  I wanted to keep the lot - except the teacher training ‘evidence’.  I could’ve made the excuse that I want to write a novel set in the 1990s and featuring football fans, but I didn’t need all of this stuff.  I have written a few notes and taken a few photos.

Most of what we’ve cleared so far has either gone for recycling or been taken to the tip.  We looked at it, remembered it, then said goodbye to it.  Luke writes in Chapter 3: 17:  His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

We have to be ruthless with our attic.  Similarly, with writing.  Often we have to

• Delete thousands of words at a time, scenes we’ve spent hours honing.   (I actually store passages I’ve removed in a ‘dump’ file on my computer.)
• Take out characters who no longer serve their purpose in the story structure.
• Accept that some pieces we’ve written are never going to find a place.
• Discreetly get rid of writing we’re no longer proud of.  I’ve shredded whole novels, dating back from when I wrote in pencil on file paper.

We move on, as people and as writers.  And we won't be able to see God and what He wants us to do unless we clear away the chaff first.

Rosemary Johnson has had many short stories published, in print and online, amongst other places, Cafe Lit, Scribble, The Copperfield Review, Fiction on the Web and 101 Words.  She has also contributed to Together magazine and Christian Writer.  She has also written a historical novel, set in the Solidarity years in Poland.  In real life, she is a retired IT lecturer, living in Suffolk with her husband and cat.  Her cat supports her writing by sitting on her keyboard and deleting large portions of text.