Off With The Books (Patricia Potter)

Coming up shortly is my neighborhood’s Countrywood Garage Sale. Now it isn’t just a garage sale. It is a gigantic sale in which more than five hundred homes participate and thousands of people travel from six states to attend. Residents sell everything from antiques to used clothing to crafts to food. It is truly something to behold.

I don’t usually participate except for two fund-raisers my RWA chapter held several years ago. But lately I’ve been receiving hints from my family. “If you ever move,” they claim, “your house will rise four feet.”

That is in reference to the books that weigh it down, or so they claim. I have a lifetime of books. I do not believe in getting rid of a book. Any kind of book. But the house might topple soon and I thought perhaps I should consider a mild withdrawal.

The notice about the sale was in my mailbox. And family comments were becoming downright rude.

Garage sale. Books. A sign?

I found a cardboard box and decided to start in my office. I have eight floor-to- ceiling bookcases in my office alone. Those are my, ahem, research books. There’s one wall devoted to American western history, one to Scottish history, one to English history, one to murder, general mayhem, and various ways of tormenting people. The last area includes the general resource materials: costumes through the ages, guns through the ages, underclothes through the centuries, ships and sailing through the ages, and the all important “Encyclopaedia Britannica.” Then there’s the one essential book for all writers: Baby Names. I have four of those, each one absolutely necessary.

Okay, Pat, you can do this. You really can. After all, most of these books are no longer necessary because of the internet. Instead of using all that space, you need only a computer and mouse.

I start with the books under my desk. Surely I don’t need three Thesauruses. And four dictionaries. Start with the dictionaries. Well, this one has the dates of when each word came into use. Can’t dump that. This one has nice large, large print invaluable for midnight hours. The third, well it’s a paperback and light. Easy to hold. The last, well . . . I never know when I’ll lose the other three under piles of other books.

Maybe I’ll have better luck with the Thesauruses. No one needs more than one. Or do they? This one is big. Lots of words. But the second is better organized. And then the third is the Synonym Finder. Paperback again. Bright red cover. Easier to find when reams of paper cover my desk while I finish my final draft. Can’t give up that one.

Okay, let’s move to Scotland. “The Laird’s Table?” Food. Now how easy is it to find meals from the 15th Century in Scotland on the internet? Better keep that one. “The Steel Bonnets?” Nope, love that book. Fascinating history of the English/Scottish border in the 1500's. Hmmmmm, do I really need twenty books on clan names and castles and Scottish ghosts?

Aye, I do. I just tore out a page (ouch) of one to send to the art department of the publisher. They really don’t know a castle from a Virginia Williamsburg house. Never know when they’ll need another picture.

On to the western shelves. Haven’t written one lately. But there’s a stirring in my breast. “Diary of a Cattle Drive Cook.” Absolutely necessary to my well-being. And, oh my, a complete collection of the PBS Wagons West series. Must keep that for that series I plan to write some day when westerns come back.
Oops. Don’t remember that one about the Apaches. I’ll just read a page or two.

Can barely see. Where did the daylight go?

I take my empty box downstairs. Lots of books there. Twelve more bookcases full. And piles. Piles everywhere. Fiction and non-fiction of all kinds. Surely I can find a reject here and there.

Ahhhh, there’s my Elswyth Thane Williamsburg series. You would have to pry those from my cold dead hands. Celeste De Blasis. Yep, cold dead hands again. And Frank Slaughter. Guilty pleasures. As are books by Jack Higgins. Can’t give those up. And all those wonderful family sagas from the fifties and sixties? Might need them when I’m one hundred and on a fixed income.

It’s getting late. Still, in my search for possible discards, I read a chapter of “The Indomitable Hornblower,” two of “Gone of the Wind” and several more about the life of a paramedic.

That box is kinda light. I look inside. An “AAA Tour Book” about Texas. Well, I have an updated one. But I smile. Progress.

Enough for now. It’s midnight. That final draft is waiting.

As for my book project, well, tomorrow is another day.