Change Is Highly Overrated
Change Is Highly Overrated
Yes, it’s ironic—I spend my days sitting here at my computer making changes
as I edit work by my authors and my own writing. Edit, edit, edit, change,
change, change. Please do not verbize nouns. Subjects and verbs need to
agree, and so do nouns and the pronouns that go with them. Avoid clichés.
How can you/how can I say this better? More clearly? How can we rephrase
this sentence or paragraph to make it more accessible to our readers who
don’t live in our heads with us?
Well, yeah, sometimes change is useful. I gotta admit it. I’m a sort of
living changemaker. At the same time, though … I moved a month ago and
I’m still looking at boxes. Not so many, thank Goddess. When I moved in,
I had mountain ranges of big boxes filled with books, boxes piled three
high in my living room. Heisenberg turned into a mountain goat. All though
the night, I’d hear thump, thump, chirp, thump as he explored his new turf.
(Schroedinger, by contrast, took up residence on my bed and hardly came
out at all until she found her old familiar fuzzy blanket on the chair
in the living room.) It took me a week to get down to the living room carpet.
That was cause for celebration.
When I was writing
Pagan Every Day, I developed a system: I did my usual editing every
morning, wrote at least two days for the book every afternoon, and did
my research every evening. During the past month, I’ve developed a similar
system. From right after breakfast until about 1 p.m., I did my usual editing
for those wonderfully patient authors I’m working with—Peter, Charlene,
two Susans, and Don. After lunch (when I remembered to eat) I worked on
boxes. My son and daughter-in-law came with tall help—I’m five-two, they’re
both tall and can reach the top of the bookshelves that reach to the ceiling—as
we pulled books out of boxes. Then I started pulling art out of boxes and
hanging it on the walls. You know what? I may have more floor space in
this apartment, but I’ve got less wall space. It’s all those windows. I’ve
got most of the art up now, which makes me feel settled. I also started
pulling witches and goddesses and Blessed Bees out of boxes. It’s said
that nature abhors a vacuum; I seem to abhor any empty space. Of course
312 witches take up a lot of room. (My friend Ariadne, to whom I gave nearly
all the empty boxes, gave me four more witches, including Miss Piggy as
a white witch in a pointy white hat.)
But nothing is quite like it used to be. I had to make changes in arrangements,
in designs, in where I set things. I had to buy a new bookcase. I also
bought a new chair (thank you, Goodwill) upon which a Muppet-size witch
now sits; I stuck my “Cherish Your Agent” pin on her blouse. Things are
in different places now. But I think that’s change I can live with. At
least my office is about the same. And I didn’t lose any files in the move.
Another change I can live with—when you’re just shoving books on shelves,
they turn up reordered from the olden days. I write book reviews and keep
the books I like, so I can honestly say that I’ve read every book I own
(well, I haven’t read straight through the dictionaries), and I like to
reread good books. I’m still finding books I haven’t read in several years.
That’s good! Now that I know where they are, I’ll get to reread them.
Oh, yes, I edit in the morning, unpack and set up art and books and goddesses
and witches and Bees in the afternoon … and what do I do in the evening?
I fall asleep while I’m watching my favorite DVDs. I’ll catch up on my
sleep eventually. And I’ll become accustomed to all these changes.
Maybe change is acceptable? I won’t vote on that this morning, but I can
see the possibility. In another month.
Posted by Barbara on Sunday, July 25, 2010 | Read Comments
Get My RSS Feed