Moving house is stressful for anyone but writers tend to have another worry, their journals, drafts, final poems, fiction and publications. I have been writing for over fifteen years and I have boxes of this stuff. Scribbled ideas, drawings, drafted scripts, novels, poems etc that I have either written or will eventually write. I am the Womble of writing.
Then there are other boxes containing correspondence and archives (these are often archives that I have inherited or that I am the executor for). So, you can imagine how fearful I am of moving these things.
Now, I can’t lift, this is not down to a life of laziness (though I could be accused of this but many would laugh this off as many class me as prolific – I always feel a slight tinge of guilt when not writing) but down to spinal damage (from the act of prolific writing). So, I always worry when others have to move these boxes, books can be replaced (well, some of them).
So, why move? The answer is simple, look at my new view pictured above. I am no longer valley living, bottom living, I am no longer hemmed in. I can see the horizon but when the movers touched those boxes I still had a lump in my throat.
My advice? To invest in some heavy duty plastic boxes that can be sealed, that are waterproof. The great thing about these plastic boxes is I can see them now, even in a room full of cardboard boxes. They shine out. I can count them, know that they are all there, see the seals unbroken, know that they are safe. I will get to them soon enough, the cardboard walls between me and them will come down and then the writing will begin again – Andrew Oldham 25/11/2009
Andrew Oldham's Boneyard 