I figured that spending a Sunday morning pruning wasn’t the worst way to use one’s time, so I went out to do battle with the various plants along the entryway to our building. The rhododendron had grown out so aggressively that there was (literally) less than a foot clearance when trying to get through there.
I like pruning. When I took Master Gardening training, it was my favorite part. I like the idea of coaxing shape out of the wood, of encouraging it in a particular direction, coaxing it up and out. The rhododendron was pleasant to do, particularly since it hadn’t been done in a LONG time and I could use my little hand saw to clear some undergrowth out. The opposite facing hedge was much less so, and held a number of g’normous (but pretty) snails and a baby bird’s skeleton (luckily I realized what it was -after- I’d dropped it and it was so fleshless that it was actually kinda neat.)
I trimmed back a lot of stuff that was encroaching on the sidewalk and it all looks much more tidy and like people instead of ghosts live here.
Now I feel I have been productive as well as gotten me some exercise so I am going to go in search of a burger.
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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
~K. Richardson
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Here's some of the books, stacked in the hallway and waiting to be sorted through. It's a fairly representative sampling. Redlaw was picked up at a con; it's a good thriller reminiscent of Paul Cornell's London Calling. Nicola Griffith's Slow River is a book I hate to part with and I know there's a good chance I might reread it at some point but for now...out it goes. There's some issues of the Magazine of F&SF, and Lawrence Durrell's Clea, which was part of "I will improve myself as a writer" reading.One of the things 2014 is bringing is all sorts of interesting and awesome changes, but part of that is a need to trim down drastically. So I’ve been going through my books getting ready to sell a lot of them. Many are from teen years, college, or grad school. Others are gathered at cons, sometimes with stories attached. Some sparked stories, or were gifts from, or were written by people I respect and admire and sometimes love. Some are signed. Some have notes jotted in them. Some are books that changed my life.
So far I’ve winnowed 700 or 800 books from the collection and there’s still a lot left. Not to mention there’s a storage locker holding at least another 1000. Argh.
But rather than dump them all at Value Village, I’m taking these last days to sort through them. Because some of these books are old, old friends. So I’m checking them on Amazon (and finding a few worth unexpectedly more, which is nice) and listing all the ones for sale in a spreadsheet, with a few notes and a price. A few I’m putting aside to give to specific people. There’s two boxes laid aside already for my godchildren.
My plan with the ones for sale is to give my two best friends, my brother, and my mom first crack to see if there’s any they want. (Or any that are actually already theirs, in mom’s case, since the boundary between my mom’s books and mine has been pretty fluid from time to time.)
After that, time to see if I can get a little filthy lucre for them. I’ll offer to share the spreadsheet with my writing group, students, other friends, and anyone else interested. (Drop a line here if you are.) Lots of fiction, particularly short stories, a lot of Women’s Studies texts, assorted odd bits and interesting historical stuff. The usual round of books about writing.
I’ll be blogging about some of the books as I hit them. After this comes a similar pass at all the knick-knackery I have accumulated. Not looking forward to that too much, but there’s also a good feeling, a wind-through-one’s-soul feeling that comes with shedding stuff.
