HELP WANTED! (For a Messy Writer)

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  You’d think the Edgar-winning Naomi Hirahara (a longtime friend of the Reds) would be nothing but happy. 

 Have you read her new CLARK AND DIVISION? (Look at that cover!)  It is, ahem, getting some attention.  Just scroll through this little list:

A Parade Magazine 101 Best Mystery Books of All Time

A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice

A Washington Post Best Mystery and Thriller of 2021

Barnes & Noble Best Books of 2021

Amazon Best Mysteries and Thrillers of 2021

2021 ABA Indie Next List Genre Gift Guide

An ABA IndieNext Pick

A BookPage Best Mystery & Thriller of 2021

Bustle's Most Anticipated Books

An Apple Best Books of the Month

An Amazon Best of the Month for Mystery/Thriller

And the incredible Sarah Weinman, in the New York Times book Review, had some thoughts: “Searing . . . This is as much a crime novel as it is a family and societal tragedy, filtering one of the cruelest examples of American prejudice through the prism of one young woman determined to assert her independence, whatever the cost.”

And so, Reds and Readers, as I mentioned, you’d think the Edgar-winning Naomi Hirahara (a longtime friend of the Reds) would be nothing but happy. But, alas, she says she needs your help with some stuff. And by stuff, she means...stuff.

Help Wanted for a Messy Writer

 By Naomi Hirahara

These past couple of days, after watching a slew of cleaning/minimalist/organizational youtube gurus, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s an underserved market: still messy Golden Girls who also happen to be writers/researchers/educators. In other words, me.

 

Over the decades, I’ve purchased various self-improvement books with the word, “messy,” in the title. I would tell you the exact titles, but I can’t seem to find them behind an avalanche of books. I read Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and nearly had a heart attack when she advised to throw most of it away. Doesn’t she realize that those pamphlets collected at research sites, thoughts on a yellow Post-It note or printout of some delicious detail can be someday be the perfect basis for my next brilliant novel?

 

Of course, I have segued to the digital age in some matters. During the pandemic I finally transitioned to Google calendar from a paper date book.  It’s less fun to look at, but much easier to access from either my phone and my computer. And I now rely on Evernote to file away pertinent website links in digital notebooks, a great way to track details for present and future books. So I’ve somehow decreased the steady stream of paper that enters our house and home office.

 

But that still doesn’t address the moving boxes full of research files that I’ve been collecting the past 35 years! And also piles of books that don’t have a space on my existing bookshelves. Over the past five years, I’ve been trying to trim my library collection. It’s been tough.

There are books I haven’t read but hope too. And books I’ve read and remind me of a certain seminal time of my life. There are books written by friends which have been inscribed to me. Before the pandemic, I regularly packed a couple of books in a backpack for dog walks and left them in a free library at a local playhouse, hoping that maybe one of the books would inspire a theater adaptation.

 

On Black Friday I ordered two additional bookcases from Wayfair and plan to reorganize my books throughout my house. We have four bookcases in the living room, one in the kitchen just for cookbooks, one in the upstairs hallway for my husband’s sports book collection, three in the office, and two in the bedroom. The Wayfair bookcases will go on my side of the bedroom. Hopefully that will eliminate any piles on the floor. ((ed note: HA!)

 

The morning that I’m writing this, I finally went through several bowls and containers that held notes and business cards.

Why was I hanging on to this stuff, when I can now easily find contact information on the Internet? No need to hold each one and see if it sparked joy. Not to mention that in many cases, the business cards were not current. Now I have eight empty bowls, baskets and containers to fill!

 

I’ve come to you, followers of the Jungle Reds Writers, for additional help. I need to declutter paper, specifically boxes of research that I’ve collected for future books. Any advice for me? How can I incorporate a system without extinguishing the spark of creativity and imagination?

HANK: You’re asking me? As I said above: HA HA HA.  Although, actually, I did just realize I don’t need to save the bills I pay after getting them in the mail. That was GREAT. (I know, soon I’ll get them all online. It’s a process.)   

And I have donated many many books, by saying: I’ll fill TWO bags, then stop. It makes the job less onerous.

How about you, Reds and readers?

 

***

Naomi Hirahara is an Edgar Award-winning author of multiple traditional mystery series and noir short stories. Her Mas Arai mysteries, which have been published in Japanese, Korean and French, feature a Los Angeles gardener and Hiroshima survivor who solves crimes. Her first historical mystery is Clark and Division, which follows a Japanese American family’s move to Chicago in 1944 after being released from a California wartime detention center. Her second Leilani Santiago Hawai‘i mystery, An Eternal Lei, is scheduled to be released in 2022. A former journalist with The Rafu Shimpo newspaper, Naomi has also written numerous non-fiction history books and curated exhibitions. She has also written a middle-grade novel, 1001 Cranes. For more information, go to www.naomihirahara.com.

Clutter inspires and sparks joy

HALLIE EPHRON: I've been talking (and talking and talking) about my book this week, and I often get asked about the serendipity of CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR coming out when Marie Kondo's philosophy and methodology for decluttering caught fire. (Today Google turns up nearly 48 million hits for the term "decluttering;" 9 million for Marie Kondo; 2.3 million for "spark joy.")

The truth is: pure luck. I started writing about being married to pack rat when Marie Kondo was 14 years old, when I'm sure she had not yet perfected her methodology for folding socks. I started writing this book four years ago.

What inspired me was my husband. 

I'm not a collector. Jerry loves his stuff. He collects old illustrated books, hotel soaps and shampoos, vintage fans, porcelain-based milkshake machines, twist ties, radios... He carries around so many pens in the pocket of his jeans, it amazes me that his pants stay up.

For decades, I've been writing about what my professional organizer friend Kathy Vines calls our "mixed marriage." Foraging around in my hard drive, I found an essay I wrote in 1998. It begins:

This morning my 90-year-old neighbor was up on a step ladder, washing the eight windows that surround her porch. After that, she vacuumed her sidewalk, the cord snaked like an umbilicus up the steps and through the front door.

By the street, she set out tidy rows of paint cans alongside pieces of lumber and plumbing innards. Beside these, she planted a hand-lettered sign: “FREE.”

Just watching her inspires me. Suddenly I’m ready to tackle that walk-in clothes closet I haven’t been able to walk into for months.

I know my husband will be inspired as well – inspired to clean the gutters and rake the lawn so he'll be in position to grab off any of the neat stuff she throws out.

 I never found a publisher for that piece, but many of the things my husband has collected over the years have made it into my fiction. And that 90-year-old neighbor inspired the old woman in my novel THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN. (For anyone who remembers that book, yes, my husband really did drag home a wicker trunk.)

Our basement is one of the settings in CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR. I wanted to take pictures to share with you all, but Jerry asked me not to. So you're going to have to use your imagination. Or read the book.

Another setting is a self-storage unit. You know, the kind where Clarice Starling found... never fear, you won't find a jarring discovery like that in one of my books.

Self-storage is a $40 billion business, thanks to baby boomers like my husband and me. Last year, one in eleven Americans were renting self-storage so they could hang onto their stuff. One article reported that the volume of self-storage units in the country could fill the Hoover Dam with old clothing, skis, and keepsakes more than 26 times. 

'Fess up: Do you rent self-storage and what do you keep there?

Free: Chapter 1 of CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
Free: Chapter 2 of CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
Free: Chapter 3 of CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

Getting A Clue

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Champagne and confetti—hurray for the wonderful Catriona McPherson, who just won the coveted LEFTY award for best humorous novel! Yay! And I don’t even think she’s left-handed.

She is endlessly hilarious, and brilliant, but you know, we all have our personal lacunae. I, for instance, still have the tiniest bit of trouble keeping track of left and right.   And sometimes the simplest thing will be revealed—and when I mention it, everyone is baffled. You didn’t KNOW that? they’ll ask. Like yesterday, I was wondering why sometimes we refer to stomachs as  tummies. The moment I asked myself the question, myself answered. But seriously, I’d never thought of that before. And the Morton Salt slogan, when it rains, it pours? Took me decades to realize what that meant.

Anyway. Sometimes personal revelations take a bit of time. As our dear Catriona has also learned.

The Life Changing Magic of Getting a Clue

  by Catriona McPherson 

Sometimes writing is work. Sometimes it really isn’t. Lexy Campbell moved into her houseboat, moored in the slough behind the Last Ditch Motel, at the end of SCOT FREE. In SCOT AND SODA we’re busy making it her own. I drew floorplans and sketches, while she arranged her larger possessions and stowed her smaller ones. (I also made a few visits to the real “Creek House”. It’s on the Hyde Street Pier, at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, open to the public and absolutely irresistible to anyone who loved dolls’ houses as a wee girl.)

Lexy’s houseboat isn’t spacious: the kitchen is titchy – her American friends feel that anyone with a fridge that size is basically camping; the wardrobe space will never cope if shoulders come back; and the bathroom- Actually, that’s very practical. You automatically wash the entire place every time you have a shower.

Lexy is coping very well with the space restrictions. She’s organised, methodical and clutter-free. I’m quite clutter-free too. But organised? Methodical? Here are three examples of my housekeeping genius. You tell me.

I’ve got two and a half baths. (Like Lexy, I always wondered about half-baths. Wouldn’t the water run out?) There are cupboards and shelves in all two and a half of them. For six years, I kept the toilet paper supply in another room entirely. Then I realised that was daft and decided it should be kept in a bathroom. For another year, I wondered which one. Finally, I had a brainwave. Buy three lots of loo roll and store one in each place with a loo. Tah-dah!

Then there was the thing with the mosquito screen. I’ve got two opening windows in my bedroom. Only one has a screen on it. (I could get a screen for the other one. I never have.) The screen happened to be on the window not very near the bed. So, in the summer, I dragged the bed out into the middle of the room, nearer the screened window. One day, about eight years in, I was washing the windows and, as usual, I took the screen off to do so. Brainwave! Put the screen back on the other window! The one near the bed! And never drag a lump of Victorian mahogany halfway across a room again! Eight years.

Even that’s not as bad as the mugs. I’ve got too many mugs. I’ve got huge tea mugs and more modest coffee mugs. For storage I’ve got some hooks and a shelf.  For nine years, unless there were some in the dishwasher, I couldn’t store them all. Now I can.

Did you see why? After nine years, I realised that big mugs are bigger and take more space on the shelf, whereas small mugs are smaller and take less. And every mug takes the same number of hooks: exactly one. So now the big mugs hang up and the small mugs go on the suddenly roomy shelf. Nine. Years.

Marie Kondo is not shaking in her slippers.

If you want to make me feel better about all of this, you could confess your own long-delayed penny-drops. Or you could pass on your favourite household organising tips.  You know there’s a fair chance I need them.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: We had a cleaning person once who moved EVERYTHING in the kitchen—to a way more logical place. The coffee stored NEAR the coffee maker, canyouimagine? All the forks in the silverware holder facing the same direction? Whoo.  And if you turned the wastebasket to face the other direction, it didn’t show under the counter. WHY didn’t I think of that?

So how about you, Reds and Readers? Any recent “Duh!?” moments?

Catriona McPherson is the multi-award-winning and best-selling author of historical detective novels, set in Scotland in the 1930s and featuring aristocratic sleuth Dandy Gilver. She also writes darker - that’s not difficult - contemporary standalones, including the Edgar finalist THE DAY SHE DIED. After eight years as an immigrant in northern California, she started the Last Ditch trilogy, written with love and no judgement (honest) about her new home.  SCOT & SODA  (“frightfully funny” – PW) comes out on Monday.

Find Catriona online: Facebook, Twitter,  www.catrionamcpherson.com.

There's no place like home... or is there?

HALLIE EPHRON: One of the more fascinating things on the Internet (shhhh, I've had time to wander this week) is an IKEA research report entitled “Life at Home.”  The questions are fascinating.

For example, where do you go when you need a moment of privacy?
Think about it....
Turns out nearly half of Americans say that when they need a moment of privacy, they go sit in their cars.

Have you ever thrown away something belonging to someone you live with without disclosing it? Think about it...
Turns out 40% of your fellow Americans have.

Do you feel more at home somewhere OTHER THAN where you live?
Think about it...
Turns out 35% do.

I know for me, there's no place like home (we only have one). Really. It's where I sleep best, work best, am most relaxed... And we've only lived here for 45 years. What about you?

JENN McKINLAY: This is fascinating. I will have to go look at the whole quiz. For a moment of privacy, I hide in my laundry room, sometimes the bathroom, occasionally, the car.

I throw out other people's things on a daily basis. No, not kidding. I live with three men who are incapable of sorting their possessions. The hoarder potential is great in my men. When I toss something and they ask for it six months later, I say, "Oh, it's in storage," which is code for I pitched it.

As for where I feel most at home, I am at home just about anywhere. I can settle into our house, our summer house, a vacation rental, or a hotel pretty easily and sleep, eat, work, and relax just fine. I do miss my furry babies, however, so home is where the heart is.

LUCY BURDETTE:  For privacy, I go to my room (to the mattress!) and I read. It never occurred to me to retire to the car...

Before throwing out, I ask. And advise:). There is no place to sleep or relax like home, though I wish I could be as flexible as Jenn! As for working, the one other place I'm most productive is on a plane. No internet, no phone, no tempting laundry or cooking...

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Huh. Lemme think. For a moment of privacy, I go to my writing study. Or outside, and take a walk. I have never ever sat in the car.  I LOVE to be home-- deeply frighteningly LOVE to be home.

And yes, Lucy, the most productive place is on a plane. I love how much work I can  done.  And get Popcorners! And in hotel rooms I am dandy, cozy and happy, unless they are too bleak or too dark, in which case, seriously, I ask to be moved, because I can't handle that at all.   The only place it is really almost impossible for me to feel at home is at someone else's house. No can do.


Thrown Jonathan's stuff away? Bwa ha ha. (evil laugh.)  ALL the time. He insists on keeping ratty t-shirts--"they're fine!"--and I say no. Gone. Bad regular shirts? Here's my system: First, I move them out of his closet and into another closet, and see if he notices. Time passes. Not a word. If he has not missed them in a year? (or less...) Gone. He has NEVER noticed.

My other move is when he's reading a book he doesn't like. He insists on finishing every book he starts, which drives me nuts. So if he complains for three days or so that he hates a book--I simply disappear it.  And when he asks where it is, I say: I gave it away.  He never cares, and then he can read something he likes.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I am shocked that so many people don't feel at home in their own homes! That's a fascinating study, Hallie. Although I'm very good at making myself feel at home in hotel rooms or rented flats, I love my house and I certainly feel comfortable in it. Too comfortable, I think sometimes. As for privacy, I go outside, or retreat to my upstairs study, or best of all, take a bath in the cozy little bathroom adjoining my study.

And, no, I do not throw things out without asking, not even ratty old t-shirts. I don't know if it's the result of being the eldest of five kids, or of being single for years before we were married, but my hubs is very possessive of his things. The consequences of treading on that delicate area are not worth the benefits. I do, like Lucy, sometimes ask and advise, but very carefully.

I cannot work on planes! This is a whole other post!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING; I love being at home so much I sometimes worry I'm at risk for developing agoraphobia. Except I also like being outside my home. I've never sat in the car for privacy - I wonder if that's the end game of all these "open concept plan" houses everyone says they want these days. My old house has doors everywhere and I love it. I loved it when the kids were small and I could corral them in the playroom between the kitchen and dining room; I loved it when they were teens and I cold read peacefully in the living room while they blasted music and movies in the family room, and I love it now, because with several unused bedrooms, I can close doors and save on heating oil.

Wait - what was the question? Throwing away stuff? Oh yeah. Ross was a mini-horder, and if I hadn't made things disappear, I'd have been buried under piles of detritus. Now I'm going through the Smithie's and the Sailor's former rooms. Am I making judgment calls about what to keep or throw. You bet I am.

RHYS BOWEN: I love both my homes, yet always look forward to going to the other one. I love watching TV in my bedroom. I work in my office but if I need to think through a complicated plot point I drive around in my car and talk it out with myself.  For privacy? I escape to my health club and sit in the sauna, or go for a walk in nature.

Throwing John's things away? Occasionally.... He is an awful horder, keeps copies of every letter he has ever written, clothes that no longer fit him, but I usually respect his stuff. I'd hate for anyone to throw my thing away!

HALLIE: I confess, I'm quite militant about NOT throwing away other people's stuff. Maybe it's because when I was 18 my parents moved from California to NYC without any warning, and without moving any of my stuff. Plus my husband would be very upset with me. And he would notice. Even the holey T-shirts.

Even when I want to throw away something old like a toy or even a prom dress, I take a picture and text it my daughters before I toss it.

And for privacy? Like Debs, I take a bath. It's also the perfect place to take a think.

What about you?