Velveteen Mind: June 2011

How do you get things done? I’m asking.

Waiting for my skin cancer surgeries has me utterly paralyzed. The sitter still comes three days a week, which may be the only reason I’m moving at all. There were a couple of days that wholly consisted of my harrumphing in bed while she took care of the kids, I admit, but I largely still close the door to my office and attempt to work when I’m supposed to be working.
But that does not mean I am productive.

You seem to be productive. I read a million blogs yesterday. Reading your blogs is inherent to my job as Editor-in-Chief of Story Bleed Magazine and part of my consulting work, but I dove deep yesterday. See there in my sidebar? Under “Readers & Writers” is my Google Shared items and a brand new blog roll. An utterly old-school rotating blog roll. It’s there to remind me what I want to read every day and to share with you what I find inspired or intriguing, regardless of the limited blog roll.

I am fascinated by other people’s work habits, particularly people that work from home. Home office space is an obsession of mine. I inexorably link environment to creativity, so I want to know what people look at and touch while they work.

Picturing where you hunker down to write, where you curl up to read, where you stretch out to design is a deep breath to me.

My home office is an absolute wreck. My desk is piled high with pages torn from magazines, makeshift mousepads, lip gloss and notebooks in every shade of rose, and prints waiting to be framed before they are crumpled and creased beyond forgiveness.

A carnival Kewpie doll mocks me, half naked with tattered boobie tassels, marked with 5¢ on the soles of her feet. I paid $20 for all of her hot mess.

There are more chairs in this office than there will ever be butts. Deep leather armchairs, a brass and teal zebra high back, a pink leather boudoir chair, a paint-scraped antique kitchen stepstool, avocado green dining chairs that I had to powerwash post-flea market. Directly across from me, having not yet found their place amid the veritable theater of seats I have accumulated, are two actual theater seats.

Antique butterfly nets rest against the brick wall behind me. They smell of something old and ill. I bought them because they reminded me of the elusiveness of ideas. Yes, I actually thought that when I bought them, reaching across piles of old books and clusters of chipped pottery, set on playing the role of pretentious writer come hell or high prices.

A stuffed Red from Fraggle Rock slouches on a table under the window. She isn’t providing any inspiration or ideas. Not one.
I don’t know why she’s here. She doesn’t either.

Three boxes of china markers rest near my feet. I bought them to mark up those torn magazine pages and some new design books I was convinced I needed the very moment I bought them but now do not know where they are.

Three boxes because, sure, I need 36 grease pencils. Sure.

I have work to do. I don’t think this counts.

My surgeries are next week. I’m hoping they are 2 of 2. Not 2 of 10.

How do you get things done? Tell me. I want details.