And, by "in" Wikipedia I mean that I was part of the "group of climbers" that aided an injured climber in one of the listed accidents. It remains one of the most memorable experiences of my life.

Tidbit #2 – I'm writing a novel in November.

Don't you love that conviction? November means National Novel Writing Month. I first learned about NaNoWriMo in November 2004. My friend and Declutter Happy Hour co-teacher, Janine Adams told me about it and somehow convinced me to do it with her.

The conversations went something like this:

Janine: "It's National Novel Writing Month! It's too late to join the official one, but I want to do it in December."

Me: "Cool."

Janine: "You should do it too."

Me: "Okay."

I must have been weakened by all the arm twisting, because that was an insane idea.

I had no experience writing fiction, unless you count poorly researched college term papers and that play my friends and I wrote in six grade. (It was a modern re-telling of the Cinderella story. But instead of a gown and glass slippers Cyndi wore San Francisco Riding Gear and Sbiccas, and went to a disco and danced to music from Saturday Night Fever.)

Besides the extreme lack of fiction writing experience, I didn't have a story idea or even a character in mind for my novel in 2004. All things Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo claims to not be a problem. In fact, that's what he called his manifesto and novel writing guidebook, No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days.

He was right. At the end of December, I had a novel. Parts of it were barely readable, but some parts were actually kind of good. I was surprised that quantity over quality didn't entirely eliminate quality.

This year I'm starting with an idea. It came to me at the Taos Writers' Retreat. I also have at least one writing buddy, Janine's doing it again too (read her great post about it). And maybe most importantly, I fired that mean-ass inner critic and hired my dead uncle.

Tidbit #3 – November also means Thanksgiving

November isn't just National Novel Writing Month, it's also time for Thanksgiving, and the beginning of the holiday season. It's also the perfect time to get 28 days of tips, techniques and insightful inspiration to help you clear the clutter from your home. We're offering a $20 discount on Declutter Happy Hourthrough Thursday, 10/29.

Even if you don't celebrate Thanksgiving and just want a unique and inspired way to declutter your space, it's a great program. See for yourself what's possible. There's also a link for free help when you're having a clutter emergency.

My inbox is overflowing with newsletters, updates and notifications that I keep getting because there might be some good information in there. The problem is that it tends to pile up in my inbox, until I can't stand it anymore and then I madly delete and respond and get exhausted, annoyed and more frequently than I like to admit embarrassed by important emails lost in the detritus.

Last week, while strategically ignoring my inbox and checking in on my favorite blogs, I read Christine Martell's post Getting Control of Email. Unlike Christine, I'm not sure I'm brave enough to know exactly how much time I'm spending on email right now, but, I loved reading about what she's doing, how it's helped, and oh the beautiful paintings!

Duly inspired, I started deleting and unsubscribing and messing around with rules and folders. There went a few hundred of the 500+, but I had a long way to go. And, it was still agonizing.

The next day, I was having a chat with my mastermind buddy, Kat Miller* that completely shifted things.

She asked me to imagine my inbox as my living room or office, and wanted to know what it would be like to invite all that email in.

[Insert Horrified Gasp]

I immediately felt panicked. I don't want all that crap in my space.

Kat talked me down, and guided me to think about my email as a special place, a literal place, place. This idyllic little Tuscan villa came instantly to mind. It was beautiful, welcoming and private.

Unfortunately, instead of being the gracious lady of this beautiful home, I was acting like a security guard at Ellis Island. Scanning over the wretched refuse looking for the sick and troublesome to get them handled.

Not a pleasing metaphor.

So Kat and I ran with the little Tuscan Villa metaphor for awhile. I decided to create a Library where I could relax and browse through newsletters whenever I wanted. Most importantly, I realized that setting aside focused time every day to greet visitors, or spend time in the library, or otherwise hang out with people who dropped by was a really wonderful way to be.

I'm practicing this new way of being with my email. It'll take some getting used to, changing of habits, and I already like how much more spacious and friendly it feels. Almost like when I got my very first aol account.

* BTW, Kat is an amazing person, with great talents and abilities. Unfortunately, she's not taking new clients right now, but when she is, and/or she has her website up, I'll be the first to share!

And it's a bugger. I've talked about clients that have it, in fact, it was the topic of my first newsletter.

And as I'm sitting here, back at my desk, after traveling for awhile I realize I have the symptoms. While traveling I had lots of time to dream. Time to percolate new ideas, to come up with a whole list of things I wanted to do when I got back home. And now that I'm home, I'm not magically completing my dream list.

I'm bouncing around from project to project, doing a little unpacking, catching up on email, doing a little decluttering, looking at my Autofocus list, click-click-clicking around online, saying hi on Twitter and Facebook, being busy, but not really getting anything done.

I'm frustrated. I hear Veruca Salt's voice in my head, "I want it NOW!"

So it's time to remind myself of the cure…thinking small. With that in mind, I can feel the frustration ease up a bit, and a small opening to do something. Not just do it, but complete it. At least in some small way.

Looking towards the Taos Mountains in the main courtyard at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House.

Last November I signed up for Jennifer Louden's Writer's Retreat. At the time, I was fired up to work on that novel that needs rewriting. Here I am months and months later, not feeling like the novel is such a priority anymore. Not really knowing exactly why I'm here. Just knowing that sometimes it's great to get out of your normal day-to-day routine, yet still have some structure.

I've met 27 amazing other women. A few I already knew in person, a few I know from the internets. It's fun to connect with them all. Listen to their stories, get to know them, why they decided to take a week out of their life to come to the middle of New Mexico.

I'm exploring this week. Curious about how this will open up new ideas. What I can embrace, what I can shed.

As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that a big reason why I'm here is because I want to sow the seed of a writing habit. All it takes to be a writer, is to write. So that's why I'm here. To stop worrying about anything or anyone else, and have time dedicated to write. Resources to help me when I'm stuck.

And to take parts of that home with me. To spend time here on this blog. To give voice to some of these characters that hang out in my head. To check in with myself a lot. See what it is that I want. Notice how I'm feeling. Take care of myself. At least for today. Oh and to write. I don't really care what it is, just to spend time writing.

1. Finish newsletter. There's still time to sign up before this issue goes out.

2. Make granola. My favorite is based off of this recipe. But I've tweaked it a bit. Way more nuts (whole almonds, walnuts, pecans!), vanilla, cinnamon and salt (coarse ground sea salt!). I'd be happy to share specifics.

3. Put finishing touches on the Declutter Happy Hour e-course. The class goes live on Thursday, June 18th. Until then use the code HappyHour and get $40 bucks off. After that regular prices for the decluttering magic that is the Happy Hour.

4. Listen to finches singing. You can listen too with this short audio clip of the music outside my window. Singing Birds

We have climbed mountains. Literally! I finally reached the summit of Mt. Hood. I've been trying to blog about it, but it was just such an amazing experience, it's hard to put it into words. So here are pictures!. At 1,000 words a pop X 18 pictures, that's practically a novella! I'm sure I'll come up with some actual words though.

To follow that up, we climbed Mt. Saint Helens again. Nothing like staring into the crater of a volcano to create a sense of awe!

Here's a little video to give you a taste:

I bought a new microphone! Which means fun times coming up making recordings. That is if my neighbor ever stops playing that one damn riff he learned on the electric guitar last summer. Seriously. It's not even a song. It's awful. And he, I assume it's a he, but that could be bad gender bias on my part, anyway the awful guitarist, plays this same riff over, and over, and over. For hours at a time. I have been known to exaggerate, but this is not an exaggeration. Yesterday from 1pm until 6pm.

And finally, my wonderful co-teacher Janine Adams and I turned Declutter Happy Hour into an e-course. I'm very excited about this, because it opens the doors for anyone to take it anytime. Take a look at the info page and let me know what you think. Also, if it's something you're interested in, remember to use the Pre-Launch discount code HappyHour to get your special price.

In case you're wondering what I'm doing helping people declutter, check out my guest post on IttyBiz if you missed it when Naomi first published it.

It was always difficult to just start writing. I'd start several pages in, leaving blanks in the front, or wait until I came up with the perfect purpose for the new journal. If I did start writing, it wouldn't last long. No great surprise there, it just wasn't fun! It was too damn stressful.

So, I accumulated a collection of mostly empty journals. Most of them gifts, lovingly chosen and offered gifts, that I stashed away, because looking at them left me feeling a bit sad.

A revelation

I didn't really realize I had been doing this most of my life until recently. I read something somewhere, I wish I could remember where, about the angst someon had when they had a new journal. Until I read that, I hadn't given my journal habit much thought.

When I started reflecting, I realized quickly that this angst was at play. But why? Or perhaps more helpfully, how?

As I think about it now, it seems a lot of it was about "getting it right." I've explored this in the past, when I talked about having fun while I was making lots of mistakes and when I fired my internal editor and hired my dead uncle. So, yes, this is a theme for me. And for lots of my clients too.

So, I started to wonder about how "getting it right" was influencing my feelings about journals. First I thought about the power of the written word. I love books, loved them since before I could read. The written word has been very powerful for me. And, it seems that I had the same belief for my own writing. If I was going to write it down, it should be right, right?

A pretty funny belief to have about, or to question, in your own thoughts. They're your thoughts. No right or wrong. They just are. Your thoughts I mean.

So over the last few years I've been challenging these beliefs that keep me from being anything but my honest self, and was thrilled by the surprise experience of getting a new journal and being excited to write in it. In fact this post, was started in that journal.

Before I go, I wanted to remind you that today, March 21, is the last day to get the early bird discount on Declutter Happy Hour. I hope you'll join us!

When you want to do your thing, or even just spend some time figuring it out, does other stuff get in the way? Sometimes it's "stuff" (picture big finger quotes) like a crammed schedule, tight finances or family responsibilities. Other times, it's actual stuff, as in physical clutter.

It can show up in different ways. Maybe you'd love to get started on an artsy-craftsy thing, but the spare bedroom, which would make a perfect studio, is full. Or you'd like to sit at your desk and write, but the stacks of papers threaten to fall in on you. Maybe you really want to experiment in the kitchen more, but finding the utensils you need is a nightmare.

Not only does clutter create these physical barriers, it can be physically draining. It can suck your energy until you don't have any extra left to fan that small spark of creativity you're protecting inside you.

Clutter Is Surprisingly Complex

Professional Organizer Janine Adams and I have been talking a lot about clutter lately. It seems like it shouldn't be such a big deal. Pick up the stuff, put it away or get rid of it.

But it's often not that easy.

Janine works with people and their clutter every day and for most of the people she works with, there's a lot more going on. It's not unusual for there to be tears shed in her decluttering sessions. Why should decluttering make someone cry?

Janine explains it like this: The emotions behind the clutter are what that make things so complicated. For many chronically disorganized people, their stuff represents so much more than just stuff. Hanging on to things (or acquiring things) can have emotional roots. It might stem from what they were told when they
were brought up. Or maybe they got in trouble as a child for throwing something valuable away. It might be a finely honed sense of responsibility that prevents them from discarding something. Or it might be what the items in question represent to them. There are many emotional sources of clutter.

Practice

When you think about the stuff that is preventing you from embracing your thing, is clutter on the list? If it is, try these steps to help you understand clutter and gently ease it from your life.

1. Ask yourself, how does clutter block you from your thing.

2. What would you be able to do if you didn't have this clutter?

3. Choose a physical area where you'd like to focus your attention; it should be large/important enough that you'll see a difference, but not so big as to become overwhelming.

4. Start with one thing. Ask yourself if you want to keep it or discard it. If the answer's discard, move on to the next item. If it's keep, then continue with the questions.

5. If you want to keep it, does it have a home? If it does, put it away. If it doesn't, yep, that's right stick with the questions.

6. What's important to you about this particular thing, what does it represent?

7. Knowing that, is it still important to keep it?

8. Remind yourself of #2 above as often as you need to.

I'd love it if you'd try this and let me know how it goes, or share your favorite way to take care of clutter.

If you'd like more help with decluttering, take a look at this new teleclass that starts March 31, Declutter Happy Hour. The early bird discount ends March 21!

And, they'd be right. And, they'd be wrong. See, clutter, can block you from what you love in so many ways. It:

• Takes up space in your home or office, so you don't have room to do what you love.
• Uses money because you have to buy stuff because you can't find what you need, so you don't have money to spend on what you love.
• Sucks up energy and brain power, beating yourself up over the clutter, so you don't have the energy to do what you love.

These are just a few of the way that clutter can block you. If you have issues with clutter, and many creative-types do, you probably have your own spin on these issues. And if clearing the clutter will help you dissolve the blocks that have been holding you back, then I'm in!

The other reason is that I know from first hand experience how much clutter can slow you down and keep you from what you love. Clutter has been an issue for me.

Warning confession ahead! That cluttered desk in the picture? I wish I could tell you it's a stock photo, but it's mine. It's how my desk looked this morning when I sat down to work. And you know what? I sat there for a moment, overwhelmed by all that stuff and I couldn't even put two thoughts together. I mean, creative thoughts about Declutter Happy Hour or writing a post or doing any of the other things that are on my to do list.

The only thoughts I had were of that voice in my head saying mean things. You know like, "What's wrong with you? Why do you always let things get like this?" Years ago this would have turned into a barrage of snark, leading to bad feelings that would have paralyzed me. But now I have techniques and professional organizer Janine Adams and the awesome ability to notice when I'm not really making things better by being mean to myself so I can take a step back, check in with myself, and find out what would really help.

Today, the answer wasn't surprising: Clear off my desk and then start work. Concerned that the piles would take up too much time (they were at least four inches high) I set the timer for 15 minutes and decided that whatever was left at that point would get set to the side, and I'd deal with it later.

No need for that. I handled the entire mess in exactly 15 minutes. Then I could get creative with the teleclass, write this post, and you know, just think clearly with all that extra space on my desk and in my brain.

Oh, just in case you aren't on the list, tomorrow I'll post my last newsletter about clutter, complete with some steps to help you handle it easily.