It’s that time of year…the time to declutter!

It’s the time of year to prepare for colder weather, upcoming family gatherings, extra baking and cooking, shopping, fighting traffic and also fighting longer lines at all your favorite stores.

But that’s not what I’m thinking about right now.

What I’m preparing for is what decluttering my desk actually means: it means moving on from one book as I finally get to focus on the next. 

I seriously enjoy this particular time of “year” – I enjoy the fresh start and I completely enjoy the fact that I finally get to play with all the ideas that have been running through my head with regard to old characters, as well as the new characters and mysteries I plan to bring to the series.

My desk has been an absolute mess while I finished going over the edits my editor proposed and also while I was formatting the manuscript so that I could obtain a printed proof copy of the book for review.  But the mess was all part of the creative chaos required when it comes to making sure I check off all the tasks I need to complete before I finally ordering a proof copy.

Now that the proof is on the way via snail mail, I’m moving onto the next book in the series and with that means a new clean notebook, new ideas to research and a new folder to fill up with printouts of all my research and anything this next book might include. 

To prepare for the decluttering, I had to spend valuable time cleaning my desk and organizing all my notes and printouts relating to Ties That Bind in order to dig out that work space I haven’t seen in quite awhile called a desktop – the old-fashioned kind, as in the working surface of a desk, not the digital version.

Well, I finally found it…my desktop.  

I know have a nice clean surface to work from.  I have the story mapped out, somewhat, as I know there will be many twists and turns as I work through this next book.  It just happens that way since I’m more of an organic writer.  I like it when my characters surprise me and I’ll never stifle them from doing so by limiting my books to a set-in-stone outline.  The prologue of this fourth book in the series has been pestering me for quite awhile and I’m glad I can finally use it in this next mystery involving Jorja and the rest of my characters.

While I will still be spending some time on Ties That Bind so that I can finally get the book published and out to everyone who’s been anxiously waiting for it, I can also spend the quality time on my new book without the added stress involved when I feel buried at my desk.  Now is not the time to feel buried, while I do what I can to participate in National Novel Writing Month, because I want to get a really good start on the fourth book during NaNoWriMo.

I know my desk will soon be a mess again as I move into the creative chaos phase but it’s so nice to have a clean surface to work from again!