I just mailed the first complete draft of the novel-that-I’ve-been-writing-forever to my agent last week (complete in the sense that it now has an ending.)  So I’ve spent the entire day cleaning and organizing my office. This is a horrifying experience, but it has to be done because I’ve begun to feel guilty about this mess I work out of.  Actually (to be honest) it’s not guilt but shame. I began to think if I got hit by a bus my secret would be revealed: I work in chaos. I work knee deep in cat hair. I have every single draft of a failed novel, drafts of the new novel, all drafts of Courage & Craft, and something like 182 lined notebooks of my journal dating back to 1972. I have copies of handouts from every class I’ve taught since 1992. I have student papers I couldn’t bear to throw away. I have newspaper clippings saved for reasons I can’t remember. In one particularly scary drawer I have dozens of failed pens, a bottle of very hard White-Out, hundreds of business cards from perfect strangers, and a very good recipe for gazpacho that I copied down about the time Carter was president. This office of mine is like one of those rooms that eventually has to be shoveled out. And shown on local evening news.

My friend Kara is the most organized person I know. (One of those people you wish you could hate but can’t because she’s not only organized and beautiful, but also kind and smart.)  She told me that she doesn’t mind moving because she has all her stuff in these little plastic boxes and crates and never keeps anything she doesn’t need. So every time I dig into a project like today I think not what would Jesus do, but what would Kara do. So far I have two cabinets in pristine order, a couple of drawers – (and five large black bags full of my writing ready for the trash) I have two more drawers, four filing cabinet drawers and one more cabinet to go. Not to mention all those handy folder holders on top of the desk which are now bending under the weight of about a thousand folders.

Is anybody else out there having a chaos problem with their work space?