I started accruing my book collection in my late teens. Not too many early on, since I moved house a lot. A couple of shelves of books. Then a full bookshelf, multiple bookshelves, double-stacked bookshelves.
Since I moved house every couple of years, this made for a major undertaking in moving, so finally reaching the financial point of being able to put a deposit on a house (and starting the decades-long process of actually buying it) meant I no longer had that regular struggle to get all the books wherever.
Ironically, once I settled in for what turned out to be a sixteen-year stay, I switched to audio and ebooks and hardly bought any new physical books at all. This precious hoard became decoration and dust-collectors, and when it came time to move once more, I bit the bullet and gave away all the books.
Well, I kept Diana Wynne Jones, Calvin & Hobbs and Ruth Manning Sanders. And my own books, of course. One bookcase worth of books.
Since I've moved into a place that was fully furnished already, I had to do some severe downsizing. Donated clothes to the clothes charities, towels to the RSPCA, and the contents of my kitchen to a lady who had just separated from her husband and had literally nothing but her kids and a car that would not fit all the things she'd like to take away.
Furniture seems very difficult to sell these days, even at nominal prices. I gave away most of it, and the rest went out onto the curb, for the opportunistic passerby, or the couch-munching crusher truck booked with the local council.
Everything else went into three skip bins, in a neat illustration of how much junk you can accumulate in sixteen years, or how something quite useful becomes junk when you have nowhere to put it, and no more time to get it into the hands of those who would be glad to have it.
I'm still a little confused about the furniture. Last time I had a garage sale, the furniture went first, to professional resellers. Now, it seems no-one wants it.
Anyway, this took up all of my head space, especially since I was also arranging for a cat enclosure and dividing door to be built at my new place (to separate my cats from the resident dogs, and all the local birds). I'm somewhat more rural now (outskirts of Sydney rather than in the Bankstown area), and have a slightly longer commute in which to do some quality writing.
I haven't written a word for nearly a month.
This is pretty amazing for me, since writing is what I do for enjoyment, and I like the stories I'm working on, but moving stress ate up all my mental energy.
I'm looking forward to getting back into it. Last time I worked on Tangleways, I'd just put Eluned into the infirmary. :D
