Why A Writer's Desk is Never Clean

As writers, we find that our desks aren't clean at all. No, scratch the desks—our rooms aren't clean. We have piles everywhere—whether they're discarded drafts, notebooks that have been filled until they overflow, or discarded food boxes, our work is scattered around. Why shouldn't it be? We are planning out worlds and lives of people who don't exist. What use is having all that information if you can't have one wall mapping out your country's government and have another wall filled with the protagonist's likes and dislikes, right?

But we should be proud of it. We had to put in work to get it that messy. But as messy as it is, it could be cleaner.

What? Did she just say what I think she said?

Yes, I did. We should make our desks cleaner.

Now, before you all go crazy and start screaming "SHE'S A WITCH, BURN HER!", allow me to explain.

We can still have all our stuff easy to grab, but how about instead of laying it out, we put them in places that are a little nicer?

Option 1: Put them in Stacks

Get these beautiful things called manila folders. They're great for making your notes on how your country handles the death penalty look very professional. I print every other draft of mine and put them in one of these. It makes me feel like I'm a professional, even though we all know that I write at my desk at 1:30 AM while wearing a blue owl onesie (I'm not kidding, that's what I wear when I write).

With these, I don't put them away. I stack them on a little shelf next to my desk, which I will get into next.

Option 2: Get a Mini-Bookshelf

I got a little bookshelf that has 3 shelves and a top to it. It reaches the same level as my desk, so it fits well. On it, I heave each shelf dedicated to a certain thing. The very top has my notebooks with plotting and brainstorming in them. The messy versions, of course.

The next shelf has all my drafts that I've printed.

The next shelf down has writing resources (The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing, Spilling Ink, and a few more notes I've made). This shelf is also home to my stuffed hedgehog, Hamish.

This is Hamish.

The last shelf holds my empty manila folders.

Option 3: Designate Drawers in Your Desk to Certain Things.

The title is very self-explanatory. Just choose a drawer and store your gov. stuff in there. Choose another, and store your drafts, etc. You get the idea.

So, there you go. Three ways to make your desk less-cluttered. And as an author, I can say that it will always be cluttered somehow. My walls still have sticky-notes on them that map out the ages of my characters from book to book. Some things are unavoidable.

~Olivia Ann