Clutter

Today I was bored.

I’ve had this problem my whole life; I have unwatched DVDs on my shelf, unfinished games for every console I own, stacks of books to read and dozens of projects that require urgent attention.

So I spent the first half of my only day off this week doing completely nothing. After some delicious café rio I went on a shopping trip and got the next book in “the age of discovery” series. After that I tried to play some La Pucelle on my PS2.

The problem I have with La Pucelle is I’ve thrust deeply into the game without much leveling or taking time to build my team. It’s gotten to the point where I am vastly under leveled and the irony therein is the crafty tactics and skillful use of purification tiles I’ve been using doesn’t grant any XP. So the game is actually punishing me for playing well. If I played the game like a generic hack ‘n slash romp I would be level 18 instead of 12 and not frustrated with the sudden maddening increase in game difficulty. It’s gotten so bad that unless I level I cannot progress any further in the game.So rather then the much hating task of leveling I turned my attention to more then two years worth of paper backlog.

Every time I design something I write it down, every time I hear something or feel something I try to write it down, every interesting thought, dream and experience gets written down. Throw that on top of everything I write professionally, scholastically or for practice and it adds up. Then add on medical paperwork, bills, magazines, work requests and correspondence that accumulated while I was sick and during my move. To make matters worse the vast majority of it is unsorted or roughly sorted.

My mind is surprisingly orderly, with thoughts that run in logically sorted paths or trees. Often I’m able to handle large abstract concepts by building them out of smaller concepts. I might have a hard time remembering a specific fact or concept but I can “backtrack” and find it with a few moments of thought. The way I organize my files mirrors those thoughts; and although it makes perfect sense to me almost nobody else can understand it. My files are sorted first by what category of my life they go into. Personal, professional or social; then they are sorted by genre, then by Genre again.

For example I have files on role-playing: I have file for 1st. 2nd and 3rd edition D&D, Shadowrun, Whitewolf, Paranoia, various homebrew’s, JRAS, GURPS, Palladium and BESM. Then I take it a step further and isolate the game folders by setting; in my Drakkor setting alone I have 8 folders. I also have folders for extra character sheets (Shadowrun, D&D 2nd and 3rd edition and Whitewolf specifically.) and future character concepts.

The idea of organizing them alphabetically, chronologically or randomly doesn’t make sense to me. Instead everything is ordered according to use. 3rd Edition Drakkor stuff is in the front, Palladium and JRAS is in the back.

Thankfully my formal writing, research, design and role-playing is formatted and sorted pretty well. The big problem is what I call scraps.Scraps are anything I start to write and give up; scraps are half or fully formed ideas that I write down and stuff into my pocket. Scraps are interesting designs that I scribble on the back of a receipt while I’m working or driving. I have unsorted scraps from as far back as high school. Many of them were the genesis of ideas that later became thesis papers, stories, character/class designs or philosophical musings. Each layer reveals a very orderly progression of my natural thinking. To see those little seedlings of ideas on paper touches me in a strange way: I can really see my mind at work in microcosm.

It has however added up to the point where I have dozens of pages of rewritten scraps and only a fraction of my way into that epic pile of ideas. Add to that old dance pictures, playing cards, recipes, awards, phone numbers from long forgotten girls, manuals for video games and other odds and ends that have ended up in my oversized box of scraps.

This is both a task that is both complex and inane. When it is done I will have a database of my thought processes stretching back into the formative era of my career; both as a game designer and a writer.