Let the Spring Cleaning Begin

 Despite the awful weather we're having, in between fleeting spots of sunshine (blink and you'll miss it), I seem to be in spring cleaning and clearing out mode. Maybe it's my new form of procrastination, or I'm hyper from the large milk chocolate Easter egg my friend gave me - what you didn't think it would last until Easter did you? Whatever the reason, I've been making inroads into the ridiculous number of books lining my long work room from top to bottom right along one wall. And there are more books in the other room. Husband is overjoyed I've taken the initiative at last.

I kept thinking I could never decide which to keep and which must go but it's been a bit easier to part with some of them, especially those enormous tomes I can hardly even lift, and never get around to opening these days. I've refused to get rid of my OU study material and books and I'm compromising on the number of paperbacks I keep. It helps that those with too small writing have to go - I have good close-up sight without the need for specs but can't be bothered making the effort to read tiny writing now when I can get them on the e-reader.


Some books need to stay, however, and we all have old favourites that are irreplaceable. Mine include the several old Bunty and Judy annuals and an assortment of other children's books. Then there are all the wonderful old reference and history books that are a pleasure to use for research since most are illustrated. So far, only one tall bookcase from the nine is almost emptied - if I can find space for the row of cookery books I can't part with. Not because I use them all, but some have been with me all through marriage and other newer recipe books call hopefully to me every now and then.

Today, it's back to spring cleaning the writing as well. I've been sending out lots of poetry this year (my first type of writing many moons ago) and having some success, which is making me look at the whole file I've gathered over the years. Then it's the articles - have had great success with those over the years, so three more are away at the moment. Several short stories have been rewritten and sent on their way, with more to finish or rewrite. Two younger children's stories are out and another is almost ready to send and I've a new middle grade novel to finish. My new novella, The Adonis Touch, is due for publication in late May and I'm waiting for the edits to arrive any day now, and I'm trying to finish a contemporary novel before getting on with the Victorian crime novel.

You might see me online every now and then, if I haven't suffocated under the weight and dust of the books still to be gone through!

Rosemary