The Rose

AUTHOR’S GAB, READER TALK.

A LETTER TO YOU, THE READER, SO THAT YOU CAN FINALLY FIGURE OUT WHAT I’M THINKING.

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THIS MONTH: Dealing with accumulation

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“Winter, Spring

Summer and Fall

Winter, Spring

Summer and Fall

Four seasons, four loves

Four seasons, four loves.”

— Uncle Iroh, Avatar: The Last Airbender

Dear Reader,

When I think of accumulation, defined as “a mass or quantity of something that has gradually gathered or been acquired”, I think of the snow that piles up on my porch and my driveway in the winter, which I constantly have to shovel and salt. Or, I have to scrape the ice and snow off my car and hope it defrosts by the time I get where I’m going, heat on full blast. Snow is pretty, and there’s definitely excitement and joy I get every year when I see it fall for the first time. I catch it on my tongue, see each delicate snowflake on my gloves and think about all the skiing I’m going to do this year, because those double black diamonds are this girl’s best friend.

I honestly don’t know how much snow falls each winter, because I’m not a meteorologist; but, I know it builds up. I know it builds up enough to where I can’t get my trash cans out on the end of the driveway because of the snowplow and think to myself, “When is that going to melt?” But, it eventually does and winter turns into spring, which turns into summer and summer turns into fall, which is where we are now: summer ending, with it about to be fall. Snow is the last thing on my mind at the moment, and I’m enjoying the summer weather.

But, I thought of another type of accumulation this month, when I went down into my basement, put my hands on my hips and saw the mess. Articles were buried in a lone bin in the corner, papers scattered everywhere and things were still in boxes from when I moved last year. I quilt, so I had to get the table cleared off in the center of the room in order to begin a few projects, unpack my quilting supplies and get my sewing machine and iron set up. I always knew I would turn my basement into a quilting center and studio and that I needed to organize all the stuff dumped downstairs during the move to do it. But, I didn’t know I would find a gold mine of my writing scattered about in the clutter, accumulated like snow throughout the years.

And so, I began sorting through all my articles, organizing them by year, putting sticky notes on them if they had clips and carefully flagging a few to scan for my portfolio. I knew the important ones and I would giggle with glee like a child at Christmas each time I found an important clip. “Oh, I remember that!”, I would exclaim. And, suddenly, all the memories of writing that article would come back, like that time I first got published in The Oakland Press on Mother’s Day, with all original reporting and photography. I had talked the editor, Julie-Jacobson Hines, into letting me write the story and I later thanked the paginator, David Groki, for giving me a half-page, inside spread in the Sunday paper. I remember thinking it looked amazing. And, as a paginator myself at the time, I was lucky to have gotten it published.

I also found several of my writings for this site, including a detailed list of my poetry in 2013, ideas I had over the years and some prose I had been working on. There’s this one story I put on Vox, but it was shut down several years ago. I thought it was gone, but my work was there, carefully saved in a folder, ready to be studied and edited again. I scooped up the folder and all the ideas in it and set it aside, for when I can consider every concept. This is the beauty I talk about constantly about saving your work, so you can go back and unearth all your seasoned, unpublished pieces later.

But, like snow, a lot of this stuff had accumulated without me even knowing it. I think about the five and a half years I spent at MediaNews Group, and all that time I was accumulating, churning out work. Now, it’s done “snowing” and I have to go through, organize and file every piece of work I have made. I have to scan in my clips. I have to make it look great on my portfolio site. And, I have to present my best. In this way, I must deal with the accumulated work I have created over the years.

With this in mind, I would like to offer you three tips about how to deal with your writing during and after you have accumulated it:

1. Organize while you’re accumulating
   • While you’re out there writing and accumulating pieces and clips of your work, make sure you’re not just throwing copies in a bin in the corner. For me, it’s a lesson learned. It was really easy at the time to just have bin and toss each newspaper clipping on the pile of other clips. Or, it was super convenient to throw a few pieces of writing in my desk drawer to be taken out later and used for my blog. I regret it now, because my writing is in a haphazard pile that needs to be sorted and organized. Thus, it’s better to organize as you go. It makes the job smaller later. Then, rather than a bin in the corner or a mesh of ideas buried under a stack of papers, you have a file that says “articles” or “creative writing ideas” or “finished creative writing pieces”. Also, keep good track of your byline, as it’s easy to lose. Collect as many of your articles as you can and don’t just think it’s another day your story is in the paper, or it’s another poem or prose you have published in a magazine. Celebrate every piece you have published and be diligent about clipping, filing and labeling each one. That’s the best way to deal with accumulation as it’s happening. But, if you do face a lack of motivation or procrastination, or you’re just too busy to deal with a stack of finished work at the moment, cut yourself a break. You don’t have to criticize yourself for what you can’t do in the moment. You do have to “do the thing” and eventually get to sorting; however, so make sure it’s not too much of a break. One thing that always helps me get something done is to find a friend to help me, whether it’s with the task or just a pep talk saying I can do what I can’t or don’t want to do right then. Find your motivator. Create the time. Make sure to organize as you go.
2. Create and revisit your system
   • Operating under a good system is always a solid plan, including when you’re organizing your writing. Maybe that filing cabinet isn’t for you. Great! Find a system that you’re more comfortable with and use it. Perhaps it’s bins, or manila envelopes, whatever works for you. Your neighbors will probably think you’re crazy if you hang your clips and story ideas from trees in your front yard; but hey, I’ll leave it to you to explain to them what you’re doing. Make sure it’s a system that lasts several years, especially if you’re committed to writing over several years and not just over the weekend. If you’re writing over the weekend, though, still put that writing in a place you can find it in a few years, in whatever organizational system you choose. Once you have a system down, revisit that system next year or in the years to come to see if it’s still working. In this way, you can determine if what you’re doing is a little outdated or if it still is tried and true. Maybe it worked well before you moved, but now you’re in a new place and this works better. And, if it works better, change it! An efficient system is a working system, which is always the best policy. Also, if you’re like me and have that bin in the corner and are thinking to yourself, “Gosh, I wish I had a system while I was creating all this stuff,” not to worry. It’s a great time to create your system. If you didn’t do it then, do it now, and it will benefit you later.
3. Showcase your best
   • By the time you’re done organizing, you’ll probably be thinking to yourself, “When do these piles go away?” and “How can I find my best work in all of this?” Unless you decide to feed all your work to the shredder or surrender some of those copies to Oscar in the trash bin, those piles (or files!) aren’t going away. You do need you showcase your best work, however. If you’re good about your system, those gems should be easy to find. Maybe they’re earmarked as you go, as something you’re really proud of. Then, you can easily pull those extra good articles out and savor them later. If they’re at the bottom of your corner pile, however, go back to step one. Somewhere in the process of organizing, you’ll find those diamonds in the rough, they’ll bring back memories and you’ll know them because they stick out in your head. Pull those out of the rubble and scan them. Actually, make sure you scan every really good article. As a practice, it’s good to scan every article, but don’t feel like you have to. Your best work is all you need to present, so that’s all you really need to scan. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to meticulously scan everything. Just scan your best! From there, I always like to have some sort of portfolio website I use to store those clips. But, if they’re sitting in a folder on your desktop or in your documents folder and that’s how you like to present your portfolio, do that. Always have maybe 4-5 current or classic pieces you’re ready to present to someone, be they an editor or publisher. That way, whomever it is gets a quick overview of who you are as a writer. Nobody wants to see every writing clip in your basement. If they ask for it, wonderful, but you don’t need to have every clip ready to go at all times. If so, you’re definitely overprepared. Make sure you rotate these “top five”, every once and awhile also, so you’re not showing work from ten years ago. In this way, your writing will benefit you the most, and you’ll always be confident when presenting your saved work.

Remember: winter turns into spring, spring turns into summer and summer turns into fall. You will always have a steady accumulation of work if you’re writing regularly, like the snowfall in the winter. But, if seasons change and you end up not writing for awhile and the “snow” melts, at least you will have this organization to fall back on. That’s the best way to deal with accumulation: as it comes.

Think about that.~

Sincerely, Your Writer,

Jessica A. McLean

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Recent Happenings:

• Recent Ad-Lib Activity:
  • February 2021’s Ad-Lib is here!
  • Here lies my foolish thinking. A writer is dedicated, not lazy. Making a resolution to pick up monthly Ad Libs again!
    • Recently, I have not been keeping up with Ad-Libbing. I graduated five years ago from Oakland University with a degree in Journalism and I got a job at a local paper, The Oakland Press. I’m doing more writing, editing, designing and publishing than I could ever dream of. But, this cascade of graduating, finding a job and working hard at a job has captivated much of my time and mental faculties, leaving little time for personal reflection. I decided there just wasn’t time for Ad-Libbing, but I would keep publishing poetry, which is what I have done. I may not be able to publish Ad-Libs monthly as before, but I hope that when I get the chance suffices.
      • TBA: I’m working on finishing my series on form. It’s a gigantic project, so I will probably split it in two. Stay tuned.
• Recently Published:
  • Poems Added:
    • Christmas 2020 — a villanelle on being stuck at home and quarantined at Christmas
• Editing, editing, and more editing.
• Waiting