Writer OCD

I seem to have a new impulsive side to me. Recently I have been going a bit OCD with scissors, staplers & my writing magazines.

Every interesting article, website address, writers information, publishing houses & competitions I come across, I find myself grabbing a pair of scissors & begin chopping away at the lovely glossy magazine that the postman kindly delivers each month…thankfully I’m not actually standing on the doorstep waiting for the delivery with the scissors firmly clasped in my hands! But I might as well be.

The minute I start reading it I start cutting it to shreds. The recycle bin loves me. My new notepad however hates me. The nice crisp pages are being destroyed each month as I go staple mad placing each snippet in the note pad in some kind of order…well what I thought was some kind of order. Looking back through the recent months of my cuttings collection I realised I just squeezed each article into the spaces provided! At least it makes interesting – if not long winded – reading when in fact I’m just trying to find the competition deadline for this month!

So although I love my new equipment friends – Mr Scissors & Mrs Stapler – my magazines & notepads scream as I open them up & proceed to harm them! Yes this is slightly OCD but at the same time I can’t store year’s worth of magazines. So this is my writerly way of (trying) to be organised.

My fiancé keeps telling me to put the deadlines in my diary, but for someone who rarely looks at their diary – we currently have 3 dotted around the flat! – I feel it is a slight waste of time for me. I think instead I need a calendar that can actually hang above my workspace that is obviously visual to me & one that is big enough to staple all the deadlines to – I wouldn’t give up the trusted stapler just yet – or I could continue as I am & then each month I can re-read the whole notepad & think “ooh yeah I was meant to look at said website/article/competition, when I was writing such & such.”

I suppose it adds a new dimension to writers block though….the ‘where did I see that competition?’ & then wasting lots of time searching numerous notepads (when you are meant to be doing ‘proper’ writing) & coming across the article you needed last month!!...it could though also be called a forgetful mind!

Now where did I put that stapler…?