House Clutter and Draft Revisions

The last couple of months have been busy and for that reason, the house (and even the yard) have taken back seats. And so, it's time to have a declutter and tackle the weeds too. But I also need to do a final revision on Joy to My Love before I send it to a professional editor. It just seems to be dragging on and on. It's beginning to feel like clutter!


This is the definition of clutter from Brooks Palmer, a professional organizer. I don't know where I found this (shame on me for not citing my source immediately!) but I like the philosophy.


Clutter : things that exist in your outer life to distract you from the inner things that you're avoiding. If you avoid something, it grows.... The great thing is, the reverse is also true: when you honestly look at something, it shrinks. When you see the situation for what it is, bypassing the emotional layers that coloured it and made it into a clutter monster, it becomes simple. That's how peaceful clutter busting is. You're honestly looking at each layer of distraction, questioning the thing, letting it go, and realizing what's underneath. Looking directly at something has the power of a magnifying glass in the sun. The sun is you; the glass, your attention ~ Brooks Palmer


As I'm so involved with revising my first novel right now, this seems to be a metaphor for revising: the distracting scenes or words, questioning meaning or relevance, deleting those words I want to hang on to, and connecting to the core of the story. AND connected to house clutter, there are all those printed pages with various comments by different critiquers and files of various drafts on my computer. For some reason, I don't seem to be able to let go of those until I've completely finished.