The desk where we write is configured in an “L”–one arm for the computer, the other for supplies, stationery, books, magazines, staplers, tape, pens . . . in other words, office supplies. That sounds too neat. Mounds of stuff is more accurate. We do clear off the various empty glasses and plates, but that leaves piles of other office debris. We have been in this office for thirteen years so you can imagine the paraphernalia we’ve accumulated. Periodically, one of us will turn to the right and say some variation of, “We have GOT to weed through this crap.” The other one will nod her head in agreement, then we turn away and blissfully ignore it all–

            – until last week. Several boxes of diskettes became the catalyst. Yes, diskettes, which now seem like ancient artifacts, (at least we didn’t have any 5.25 floppies). Our first impulse was to chuck ‘em. Ditch the whole stack, giving us an instant feeling of accomplishment. But we must have been saving them for something, right? So, we dug out the antique, portable floppy drive, grabbed a stack and started flipping.

            Most were the multiple copies we saved while working on books, as far back as  Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made–those are from 1994-95! Yes, if we were working on our manuscripts in quill pen it might be interesting to have the drafts so the minute details of the evolving manuscript would be preserved–not that anybody’s looking. But mostly we saved multiples of every change we made because we were afraid of losing work we’d slaved over to the PC gremlin. Once that has happened, you never feel safe again. Ultimately, we decided that the twenty seven copies of our books held onto “just in case” were superceded by the actual books, so into the trash they went.

            The surprises came with the disks that had cryptic labels (like MUSING MIDDLE 2) which, once upon a time, must have meant something to us, but now might just as well have been written in Cyrillic. Then there were the disks that had no labels at all. Again, we were tempted to toss them, but instead slipped them into the drive, listened patiently to the whirring sound while the new computer tried make sense of a document written in WordPerfect 5.0. But to our amazement, we actually found story ideas that were of interest, and in one case the better part of a synopsis that we had completely forgotten. Virginia began reading the outline out loud and we were both mystified, mesmerized, waiting to hear what happened next. The story was intriguing, one that we may pick up and try to move forward. If we had dumped the disks we would probably never have remembered it existed.

            The lessons–write down those story ideas that don’t fit what you’re working on now—ALL of them.  It feels like you will remember your genius concept forever, like it’s burned into your memory. The truth–you won’t. That mind space was written over to remember the 112^th password or pin code you just created. Whatever storage system you’re using–thumb drive, notebook, index cards–has a better shot at retaining and retrieving the information than the portable storage drive in our brains (No matter how young your brain is now!). The other lesson is to actually read through your old notes periodically. You may find a story thread that gels with a piece you are working on now, or a new approach to a plot twist that stumped you at the time. Or you might think, “What planet was I on?” and dump it, thus clearing space for new ideas to clutter your desk (Guess they could be stored neatly, but what fun would that be?)

            Maybe we’ll tackle the stack of books—and mystery envelopes next, but not today.

Donna & Virginia
Website: http://deberryandgrant.com
Blog: http://twomindsfull.blogspot.com
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Titles:Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made, Far From the Tree, Better Than I Know Myself, Gotta Keep on Tryin’, What Doesn’t Kill You, Uptown (2010) & Exposures as Marie Joyce