Second Question...

Pretend that you are Granger in Fahrenheit 451.  For the preservation of cultural history, you are tasked with memorizing one book.  What book would you choose to memorize and why?  I would like to say I would choose to memorize The Complete Works of Emily Dickinson.  I think I've got about a quarter of them already.  And the rhythm and cadence of Dickinson's poetry does lend itself to easy memorization.  Now, if Emily had been able to publish during her lifetime, if she hadn't been so brash with a pen, if she hadn't been a woman, etc, etc...her work may have come out in volumes, and I could choose one of them to memorize, but alas, that didn't happen. So I would task myself with memorizing all of the nearly 1800 poems in the collection (and love every minute of it).

First question...

Today is my first day back at my desk (well, my recliner and my laptop) since my wonderful week at The Rosemont College Writer's Retreat.  I was very excited to get back to work after an intense week of readings, lectures and lessons on craft.  I even woke up extra early without the help of the alarm clock.  But when I walked into my living room to prepare myself for my writing day, I saw the detritus of eight days of neglecting my space in favor of concentrating on the retreat.  Before I could even open up my laptop, I found myself compelled to empty out my backpack, file the papers I had amassed, get rid of the dirty dishes and empty the trash.  I even found myself changing the sheets and vacuuming the rugs.  It was then that I asked myself, "Is this procrastination?"  I knew that it wasn't, because I had a ton of great feedback on my novel I wanted to work on.  That was when I realized that I am one of those writers who needs a relatively clean, very neat and thoroughly organized environment in order to get my writing done.  The lack of clutter frees me from the distraction and possible excuse for procrastination that a messy environment would provide.  I know that not all writers are this way, and I would like to hear from the dissenters with different opinions.

So this is the first question:  Which type of writer are you?  Are you organized or do you need clutter?