Time Management Tuesday: A Brief History Of Possession Purges

I have a couple of younger family members who have recently been purging their homes of unnecessary material items. Yes, indeed, it seems the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree, since I did something similar for an entire month. Three times.

I am a big, big believer in less being more and that living with mass quantities of things around us has a very big impact on how we're able to use our time. It's especially true for those of us who work at home. And there are more of us these days. 

So what's been going on with my family inspired me to round up some OC posts on the purging we did here over the years, including the research that supports backing a truck up to your house and filling it up.

 The October Purge Results 2014

"...during the month of October I divested my home of one item a day because

• The Environmental Disorder study found that a disorganized environment can undermine impulse control. You need a little impulse control in my line of work.
• Owning a lot of stuff is time consuming because you have to take care of it. 
• According to the author of  Overwhelmed, the Danes don't buy and save a lot of stuff. It's good to be a Dane." 

The October Purge Results 2015

"We did, indeed, each find an item a day in October to get out of this house. That's sixty material possessions we don't need to spend time dealing with. That's more than 22 cubic feet of belongings that won't cause disorder in our lives, leading to self-regulatory failure. Seriously, someone (not mentioning any names, Civil Guy) measured the heap, did some calculations, and came up with 22+ cubic feet. Evidently that's not much when you're talking loads of gravel or concrete. But we're talking stuff."

 A Merciless Purge 2017 

"The big difference between this year's purge and other years' is that our month of purging ended, but we didn't stop. We're still working on the shelving in the living room. Wish I'd thought to take a before picture of that. We got rid of some items from the kitchen just this past week, and I have my eye on something in my office. In fact, some serious shuffling of office material could be in my future."

We're Minimalists Now

 

We haven't had an annual purge here at Chez Gauthier in three years. We haven't eliminated all unnecessary material items from our lives, by any means. But we consider ourselves minimalists and trying to live a minimalist lifestyle is a daily effort now, not an annual one. We're always getting rid of things. We're always thinking about what we want to purchase, bring into our home, and live with. This philosophy even impacts our gift giving. I, in particular, am very mindful about how much I saddle others with in the form of gifts.

I do think possession purges have had a positive impact on my work output. But I'm always looking to get rid of more, so I can do more.

A Mini-Binge Possibility For Regency-Era Comedies of Manners

I recently wrote about a binge-worthy trilogy, Truly Devious. Now I have a two-volume binge suggestion, this one dealing with the Regency-era-women-looking-for-husbands.

I am a fan of Patrice Kindl's Keeping the Castle, a book I thought had the Regency romance set up with a modern twist, because the young woman main character was...

"...all business, not romance. She's out to use her beauty, which she knows won't last long, to score a wealthy husband who will save her family's dilapidated castle home, thus providing for her mother and very young brother, as well as all the people who work for the family. A lot is riding on her. She's a lot like the female lead in a contemporary YA novel who is intent on going into a profession. The outsider male in this case isn't a rogue, as you find in the old-time romances. He's an outsider because he can actually do something. In this aristocratic world, doing nothing because you've inherited wealth is held in higher regard than being smart enough to make a buck."

Kindl did a second book set in the same world and described as a "companion volume to Keeping the Castle." A School for Brides involves a girls' boarding school where the students are being educated to become wives, though the area is woefully short on husband material. 

I found this book a little heavy on characters and their story lines. I would have been happy if some of those characters had carried their own books. However, as I got closer to the end, the skulduggery and romance provided a lot more narrative drive.

It's been so many years since I've read Keeping the Castle that I didn't realize A School for Brides included some characters from the first book until I was reading up on it in order to write this post. Read the books one after the other, so you don't miss anything the way I did. 

By the way, I also liked Patrice Kindl's Owl in Love, which is very different from Castle and School.

Time Management Tuesday: A Creativity Mantra To Stimulate New Work

A little over a week ago, some Facebook friends and I were discussing my mantra "When I am exhausted and overwhelmed from too many tasks, I choose one to complete. One that can be completed." Or, to put it in a less unwieldy manner, "Finish something."  

As a result, friend Susan Barlow--yoga and tai chi instructor, historian, and serious walker--sent me the poem The Poet's Occasional Alternative by Grace Paley, which appeared on The Writer's Almanac last month. The poem, she felt, reminded her of our discussion, because it dealt with "doing one do-able thing and allowing that to be enough."

In an attempt to respect the holder of the copyright on this poem, I'll just give you some samples and urge you to seek it out yourself for the full reading experience. It begins:

I was going to write a poem
I made a pie instead      it took
about the same amount of time
of course the pie was a final
draft      a poem would have had some
distance to go  

 

Towards the middle Paley says:

the pie already had a talking
tumbling audience among small
trucks and a fire engine on
the kitchen floor

 

She ends with:

 

I decided to
settle this morning for a re-
sponsive eatership      I do not
want to wait a week      a year      a
generation for the right
consumer to come along

From The Poet’s Occasional Alternative by Grace Paley in Begin Again. © Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000

Susan happened to send this to me on a Tuesday when I had no Time Management Tueday post, because I had spent the day with a young man, freeing other family members who were building a playset in his backyard. The day before, when I could have been writing the post, I had made pumpkin custard to bring to him. Because, as Paley said of her pie, pumpkin custard is a sure thing. Time Management Tuesday, not so much. 

Touching, Gail, But What Does It Have To Do With Time Management For Writers?

Here's the thing--cooking for people like Paley and me, who don't cook for a living--falls under the category of "unnecessary creativity," which I first wrote about back in 2013 in relation to an essay by Todd Henry.

Todd writes about what he calls "Unnecessary Creation," which he believes "is essential for anyone who works with his or her mind." He's talking about creative acts--making something, anything, that didn't exist  before--that are unrelated to an individual's work. "...something about engaging in the creative act on our own terms seems to unleash latent passions and insights." In other words, creativity spurs creativity. 

That was certainly the case for Grace Paley, whose pie-making inspired a poem. My custard--and reading Paley's poem--inspired a blog post. One of my objectives for this year was to start some eating essays. I'm inching toward that with this piece. Making that custard was time well spent.

A Creativity Mantra

Knowing that one type of creativity can lead to another,  I now have a second mantra.  "When all else fails, create something."

 

You Can Binge Read The "Truly Devious" Trilogy Now

I was definitely a fan of the first two books in the Truly Devious trilogy by Maureen Johnson, Truly Devious and The Vanishing Stair. I liked the two mysteries, one set it in the 1930s, the other in the present. I liked the Vermont and school setting.

The finale, The Hand on the Wall, is well reviewed, but not my favorite of the books. The reasons:

• Romance. I liked the mystery. I wanted mystery, and I wanted everything in the book to serve the mystery. I know there is a feeling among some YA people that YA books must have a romance. But with a lot of mysteries, both YA and adult, I find romance a tack-on. It distracts from what is, to me, the real story. In The Hand on the Wall there is one plot point that the romance supports. Maybe there are more points in the first two books that I don't remember. The romance wasn't a great element for me.
• Politics. These books include a political element that involves a cliched bad-guy politician. In the second and third books, the politician does support a plot point. But we have to put up with a lot of him for him to do that. 
• Serial, not series. The Truly Devious trilogy is definitely a serial, not a series. I had read and, remember, liked the first two books and still found it difficult to recall material that needed to be recalled to make the last book really work for me.

But that third problem can be by-passed now, because all three books have been published. Read them one after another. Maybe my romance and political issues would be resolved with a binge read, too.

More August Childlit Books

Part Two of this month's collection of August childlit book releases. Check out Part One.

So many books. So many, many books.

 

Aug. 1 Four Unofficial Guides to Minecraft, Linda Zajac, Lerner  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 11 Saturdays Are for Stella, Candy Wellins, Charlie Eve Ryan illustrator,  Page Street Publishing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Aug. 11 Star Daughter, Shevta Thakar, Harper Collins 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 11 Girl vs Squirrel, Hayley Barrett, Renee Andriani illustrator, Margaret Ferguson/Penguin Random House

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Aug. 14 Dance like a Leaf, A.J. Irving, Claudia Navarro illustrator, Barefoot Books

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 18 We're Going on a Goon Hunt, Michael Rex, G.P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Random House

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 18 Ikenga, Nnedi Okorafor, Viking/Penguin Random House

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 18 The Polio Pioneer, Linda Elovitz Marshall, Lisa Anchin illustrator, Penguin Random House 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 18 Raybearer, Jordan Ifueko, Amulet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 18 The Nerviest Girl in the World, Melissa Wiley, Penguin Random House 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 18 Stealing Mt. Rushmore, Daphne Kalmar, Feiwel & Friends/Macmillan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 18 Mask, Kate Hannigan, Simon & Schuster 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 25 Me & Mama, Cozbi A. Cabrera, Simon & Shuster 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 25 Now That I’ve Found You, Kristina Forest, Roaring Brook/Macmillan

 

 

 

 

 

Aug 25 RESPECT: Aretha Franklin, The Queen of Soul,  Carole Boston Weatherford, Frank Morrison illustrator, Atheneum/Simon & Schuster

 

  

Aug. 25 Albert Hopper, Science Hero, John Himmelman, Holt/Macmillan

 

 

 

 

Aug. 25 Darius the Great Deserves Better, Adib Khorram, Penguin Random House

 

 

Aug. 25 Dark Was The Night, Blind Willie Johnson's Journey to the Stars, Gary Golio, E.B Lewis illustrator, Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin Random House 

Finalists For 2020 Connecticut Book Awards

The Connecticut Center for the Book has announced the finalists for this year's Connecticut Book Awards. Among the nominees in the young readers' categories are some names that will be familiar to Original Content readers.

Fiction

The Tornado – Jake Burt, Macmillan, Feiwel and Friends
New Kid – Jerry Craft, HarperCollins Children’s Books  OC 2014
Ruby in the Sky – Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo, Farrar. Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers OC 2020
Searching for Lottie – Susan L. Ross, Holiday House

Nonfiction

Superlative Birds – Leslie Bulion, Peachtree Publishers, Inc. OC 2020
What You Eat – Valorie Fisher, Scholastic
I See Sea Food, Sea Creatures that Look Like Food – Jenna Grodzicki, Lerner Publishing Group OC 2019
Titan and the Wild Boars – Susan Hood, HarperCollins OC 2017 & 2018

Picture Books

Winter Cats – Janet Lawler, Author, Albert Whitman & Company OC 2016 & 2018
Esther’s Gragger: A Toyshop Tale of Purim – Martha Seif Simpson, Author, Wisdom Tales Press  A Facebook friend who has made multiple appearances on OC's Connecticut Children's Literature Calendar over the years.
The Night Is Yours – Abdul-Razak Zachariah, Dial Books for Young Readers

2020 Spirit of Connecticut

Venture Smith’s Colonial Connecticut – Elizabeth Normen, CT Explored

 

 

Still Another On-line Opportunity During The Covid Era

Late yesterday afternoon/early evening, I took part in a virtual literary salon organized by author Patricia Ann McNair in Chicago. Patty (Yes! I can call her Patty!) held the salon for students in two on-line workshops she led this summer through the Connecticut Literary Festival. I took her flash forms workshop, which was wonderful and which I will gush about here sometime in the future. 

Two other writers from Connecticut took part in yesterday's event, but there were also two from Michigan and one from Seattle. Another person may have been from the Chicago area. Never would I have been part of a group this widely dispersed under normal circumstances. For that matter, a salon would have had to be very nearby for me to consider leaving the house for one at all. Because you all know how I am.

Once again, for all the true chaos this flipping pandemic has caused, it continues to create some types of opportunities, opportunities that I hope will continue when we come out of the other side of this thing. 

This salon fell at 5 o'clock in my time zone, so I provided myself with a little charcuterie plate and white wine to create a serious literary experience in my cellar office. Turns out, though, no one else was eating at this thing.

Of course, that didn't stop me.

A Model For Some Distance Learning

Teachers are facing a lot of anxiety over the coming school year. Having to go back into classrooms during a pandemic is the cause of stress for one group. Dealing with distance learning and the technology involved in order to do it is the cause for another.

So when I stumbled upon an on-line lesson by writer Lynda Mullaly Hunt for teachers with classes reading her book, Shouting at the Rain, I thought, This is something that should be shared. Not only could some middle grade teachers use this in their actual classrooms, but other teachers might get some ideas for distance lessons.

Lynda has done some pretty sophisticated technical things here. But she began with a variation on a Jeopardy game, something teachers have been doing for years. Then she applied technology to it to give it more educational content and keep viewers' attention. 

What this says to me is, come up with content first. Then see what technology you can find and master (or get someone else to master for you) to make it work for distance learning. 

One of the benefits of learning a new technology is that once you've learned it, you've learned it. It's available to you, and you can use it again.

National Book Festival Going Virtual!

The Library of Congress National Book Festival will be virtual this year. You know how I love virtual events. In the twenty years of its existence, I have never been to the National Book Festival. I have no plans to go any time soon, either. But I might hit a few events this year on September 25 through 27 , virtually. 

Children's Authors Taking Part

• Sophie Blackall
• Dan Brown
• Veronica Chambers
• Chelsea Clinton
• Jerry Craft
• Jessica Curry
• Parker Curry
• Angela Dominguez
• K.A. Holt
• Deborah Hopkinson
• Kwame Mbalia
• Megan McDonald
• Connie Schofield-Morrison
• Frank Morrison 
• Peter H. Reynolds
• Barb Rosenstock
• Pam Muñoz Ryan
• Jon Scieszka
• Nic Stone
• Don Tate
• Steven Weinberg
• Mo Willems
• Kelly Yang

 YA Authors Taking Part

• Becky Albertalli
• M.T. Anderson
•  Tonya Bolden
•  Mike Curato
•  Jo Rioux
•  Lucinda Robb
•  Rebecca Boggs Roberts
•  Aisha Saeed
•  Nic Stone
• Sabaa Tahir 
• Gene Luen Yang
  

Childlit Books Publishing In August

At the beginning of this month, I thought, Gee, looks as if August isn't going to be a big month for children's publishing. And then a couple of weeks passed, and I saw I'd collected a lot of titles. So I'm doing two posts again this month.

These are books publishing during a pandemic. Authors and illustrators are limited in what they can do for promotion. Feel free to pass on the word about anything that interests you. And, remember, these are just titles I've stumbled upon on social media. Many more books are publishing in August.

Aug. 1 Kingston the Great Dane, Debbi Michiko Florence, Melanie Demmer illustrator, Picture Window Books/Capstone 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 4 The Summer We Found the Baby, Amy Hest, Candlewick/Penguin Random House 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 4 How to Find a Bird, Jennifer Ward, Diana Sudyka illustrator, Beach Lane Books/Simon & Schuster

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Aug. 4 Albert Einstein: A Curious Mind, Sarah Albee, Gustavo Mazali illustrator, HarperCollins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 4 Pacey Packer Unicorn Tracker, J.C. Phillipps, Random House/Penguin Random House 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 4 Grasping Mysteries: Girls Who Loved Math, Jeannine Atkins, Atheneum/Simon & Schuster

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 4 The Black Kids,  Christina Hammonds Reed, Simon & Schuster 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 4 Ellie's Voice, or Trooommmpfff, Piret Raud, Yonder/Restless Books

Aug. 4 Second Dad Summer, Benjamin Klas, One Elm Books/Red Chair Press

 

Aug. 11 Catching Thoughts, Bonnie Clark, Summer Macon illustrator, Beaming Books

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 11 Fighting Words, Kimberly Bradley,  Dial/Penguin Random House 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 11 Facing the Sun,  Janice Lynn Mather, Simon & Schuster

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 11 The Talk: Conversations About Race, Love & Truth, edited by Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson, Crown/Penguin Random House