'Quirkz Handbook' Excerpt: Day 6 - Prune

Today’s goal is to declutter, or simplify, which is another way of saying, “Get rid of some junk.” I think the title of today’s exercise, “prune,” is an apt one. (More so if you have old fruit to throw away.) Pruning is about improving what is left behind by selectively getting rid of things that shouldn’t be there.

Most of us have too much junk. Stuff piles up pretty easily, often unintentionally, although we do live in a society that puts a lot of value on collecting material things, so in many cases the pile of excess is all too intentional. But I’m not here to take you on a guilt trip, nor is my goal to analyze society at large (there aren’t enough days in the year for that job). The point is to simplify your life, just a little, by shedding things no longer wanted or needed.

A lot of declutter programs get pretty serious. I’ve heard of one that requires disposing of so many pounds of stuff before the challenge is over, and another that demands trashing something every day for a month. Really strict anti-clutter activists may make a policy of finding something to get rid of before they’re allowed to bring something new into the house. Don’t worry, I’m not going there. It’s easy enough if you’re replacing a shirt or coffee mug, but if I had to dump something every time I bought a new book, I’d have a pile of books and nothing else.

Today’s challenge is to spend about half an hour grabbing some immediately apparent stuff for an easy win. Come to think of it, “Go for the easy win” would make an awesome tee shirt.

Some things to consider:

• Old electronics. It’s easy for this stuff pile up, especially if your state has a mandatory electronics recycling program. Maybe now is the time?
• Old clothes. (Confession: I realized I have six highly impractical tiers of tee shirts: 1) shirts I really like and wear any time they’re clean, 2) shirts I go to when the good ones are used up, 3) special shirts I wear on rare occasions (a sports jersey, say, or the slightly racy band memento I can’t wear in polite company), 4) junk shirts suitable for when I’m doing dirty projects like painting, 5) other shirts that I don’t really like or don’t want to wear but I keep in case the washing machine breaks, I can’t make it to a laundromat, and I’m stuck like that for three weeks, and 6) a whole stack of shirts, mostly gifts, that I wish I could wear but they’re the wrong size, so I don’t want to throw them away even though they’re worthless. Obviously, number 5 and 6 are good candidates for disposal.)
•  Kitchen gadgets, appliances, and utensils. Look especially hard at cracked items, sets with missing pieces, and gifts that you never use.
• Furniture. Maybe there’s a broken piece you haven’t thrown away because You’re Going to Fix It One of These Days, Really (TM). Maybe it’s unnecessary or in the way, like the rocking chair we keep in the guest room, even though nobody ever sits in it, which we have to move every time we get into the closet.
•  Expired goods. Medicines; food; dried-up pens, markers, or paints; ancient bathroom or cleaning supplies; dietary supplements from your last self-improvement program in 2003; and so on.
• Unwanted decorative items. Old posters or pictures, random kitsch that doesn’t represent you any longer, gifts that you don’t really want. (Right now I’m looking at a plant that died 6 months ago, but I haven’t fully admitted it because it still looks green-ish.)
•  Books or periodicals that you’re not going to read. Be honest with yourself: if you’ll never get around to reading them, or if you read them once and won’t ever read them again, why keep them?
•  Leftovers from hobbies you’ve discontinued, or half-completed projects you’re unlikely to get around to finishing. (Alternately, this could be a good reminder to get serious about finishing the project. Because of this I found something I was working on for one of the kids that has been languishing for more than a year. Okay, two years.)
• If you have a “junk drawer” (or junk closet, or—God forbid—a whole junk room), go through that and get rid of anything that isn’t useful, and put the useful stuff where it belongs.
•  Kids’ stuff. I don’t mean their belongings (decluttering someone else’s items is cheating, plus it should be up to them to choose what they don’t need anymore), but if you have old accessories or equipment (a high chair, old car seats, toddler-sized camping gear, ten thousand sippy cups in the pantry) those are the things that can go. Or maybe it’s time to sort through the pile of mementos and drawings, filing away the good stuff and letting the lesser items go.

That’s just a starter list, but it should be enough for a first pass. Try to get at least 10 items (use grocery store express lane item count—a box of a dozen light bulbs for the lamp that broke three years ago is 1 item, not 12, whereas 3 pairs of pants is 3 things, and you’ll need advanced calculus to decide how to count the 4 pens and a broken pencil you pulled out of the junk drawer), but if you haven’t done a declutter before, I’d bet you can double or triple that pretty easily. If you like the results, nothing’s stopping you from going further now, making a regular habit of decluttering (like a monthly pass-over, say), or turning it into your next project when this is done (more about this on Day 24). Still, if you hit half an hour or 10 items and want to call it quits, I’d say that’s mission accomplished.

Don’t assume you have to throw away your stuff. In approximate order of personal utility you might be able to:

1. Sell it (Craigslist, eBay, yard sale).
2. Give it directly to someone else who really wants it.
3. Donate it to someplace that will put it in the hands of someone who wants it.
4. Recycle it.
5. Trash it.
6.  Shoot it into the sun with a doomsday cannon.

Just make sure that your plans to get rid of an item productively (like selling it) work out quickly, so you don’t end up holding onto it forever.

'Quirkz Handbook' Excerpt: Introduction

Hello, and welcome to the Quirkz Handbook for a Whole Bunch of Words and Stuff. Since you’re

here and reading this now, I’m going to make two educated guesses:

One, you found the title funny, and now you’re looking inside to see if the contents are anything like that. You can rest assured that this book has both many more long sentences, and also probably some jokes somewhere. So, if you’re amused thus far, please continue. (If you’re not amused, that’s okay, the program works just fine even for people with no sense of humor. [Or one that’s different than mine.])

And two, you’re pretty okay. You’re not perfect, but you’ve got things together, more or less. Sure, some things could be better. Maybe most things, at least part of the time. But you’re not in a bad place, really. You could even slack off a bit and still be pretty okay, or at least simply okay. But maybe life doesn’t quite have the sparkle that you’re looking for, or things have gone a little flat, and you want to shake things up, keep them interesting, maybe find another level. You don’t know what it is, but you’re certain, somewhere deep down, that there could be … well, more.

My friend, this book is for you. It assumes you’re like me, and like a lot of other people I know, or have heard about, in magazines or on the internet, maybe. You have a good baseline, but you’d like to step it up. A little. If it’s fun, and not too hard. You know, more like a small nudge in the right direction (or directions) so that you can look back after some arbitrary number of days (Thirty. It’s always thirty.) and say to yourself, “I did all that? Look how far I’ve come. I spent less than half an hour a day, and took a couple of days off for bowling league or date nights or family emergencies or whatever, and I’ve still had some awesome adventures and now I have this nifty story to tell.” (Have I mentioned the Day-Off Coupons? This is the only 30-day program in the world that builds in five vacation days. That’s one of many indicators of our innovation, brilliance, and reasonability, all designed to help you succeed.

Finally, there’s the fact that spending 30 consecutive days on something (almost anything, really, but especially intentional improvement) is a bona fide accomplishment. It is practically guaranteed to feel fantastic at the end. And who wouldn’t want to feel fantastic and accomplished? 

Let me reassure you, this is no joke. If you spend a month (more or less) pursuing every activity in the book, by the end you will indeed have several worthwhile stories to tell. You will have discovered new things about yourself, pulled off things you didn’t expect you could (probably, unless you have exceptionally high expectations or something, in which case maybe you should be reading the Quirkz Handbook for Total Badasses Who Don’t Need to Improve at All), and you will have become something different: not just so-so, not just okay, but maybe (just maybe) pretty good.

'Eight-Bit Bard' Excerpt: Brown-Bearded Dwarf Needs Food Badly

I paused in the street, searching for danger. I smelled frost on the night air, and … “Sssh. Is that footsteps?”

Crunch, crunch, crunch. The sound of boots on frozen snowpack. That could only mean impending danger.

I spun in all directions, looking for signs of someone approaching, but saw nothing.

“Invisible foes?” Jexica asked.

Crunch crunch.

“Flyers?” suggested Caltrop.

“Flyers no walk,” Mulk reminded us all.

“Oh, right.”

Crunch, crunch, cr-

The noise stopped as suddenly as it had started. I fingered my weapon, expecting death to reveal itself momentarily. The silence drew on, eerie and nerve-wracking. Eventually we relaxed. “Maybe it was the ghost footsteps of some lost soldier?” I lowered my weapon and the rest of the crew adjusted their stance, prepared for doom within the half hour but not within the minute. Wort tightened some flaps on his pack and stood straight.

“Okay,” I said, “We’re going to do a loop to the north.”

“Edda?” asked Caltrop.

“Shadow Run. Edda’s got the guardian statues. I’m still not ready to fight that ogre again. Let’s square up and-”

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

“There it is again!”

“Mmmf-hmmf mrr mmf?” said Wort.

“What’s that?”

The half-dwarf held up a hand: smack, smack, gulp. “What could it be?” Wort said, before taking another bite of cracker. The source of the munching and crunching was now obvious.

“What are you eating?”

“Wahbleb.”

“What?”

“Sorry. Waybread. Gotta keep my strength up.”

“It hasn’t even been two hours since dinner.”

“Really? It feels like I’m starving every time we go out. My stomach starts growling, ‘Brown-bearded dwarf is very hungry!’ and if I don’t eat I feel like I’m going to just collapse in the middle of a fight.”

“There’s no way you’re going to starve. Come to think of it, I’ve been out on five-day expeditions and we never bothered to bring any food at all. Just eat when you get back to the Guild, or grab a snack if we pop into a bar for a refreshing drink.”

“But we’re fighting, and you need energy to heal.”

“We pay for magical healing, Wort.”

“Yes, but what does the magic act upon? Your body! And your body needs food even for magical healing. Or so I’ve been told.” He looked around a little shiftily.

“Look, if you insist on eating, can you pick something that doesn’t make so much noise? Maybe a nice sandwich. Untoasted. Without any fresh veggies.”

“But regular food spoils in the wild. You need dried goods if you want them to last.”

“In a few hours? At these temperatures? If I don’t have time to get hungry, the food doesn’t have time to spoil. Try a piece of jerky, if you have to.”

'Eight-Bit Bard' Excerpt: Disarming Traps

I said, "If we want any loot we’re going to have to take our chances. Thus we have Exhibit A, this treasure chest. Jexica, as our rogue it’s your turn to shine.”

Jexica nodded and stretched her fingers, cracking the knuckles. I held up a hand. “Before we get started, there’s two stages. Identify, and then disarm.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve been trained. I know how this works,” Jex said.

“You’ve been trained to identify and disarm, but did anyone mention the Committee Method?”

She paused. “No, what’s that?”

“Before you do anything, we all take a look. You’re the specialist, but the rest of us aren’t dumb. We all take a glance and tally our impressions. You get the final say, of course.”

“I like it,” Caltrop said, kneeling down in front of the chest and eyeing the lock mechanism. “Crowdsourcing is an excellent team activity. My father always had a saying, a few extra sous chefs just help make the bisque better. Hmm. Looks like a shocker trap to me.”

“I’m not really sure that’s the best analogy,” Jexica objected. “Are you sure that-”

Wort interrupted, “Well I think it’s a gas cloud.”

“No, look like dart trap,” Mulk said.

“Don’t be silly,” Wort replied. “That bladder mechanism has to be tied to a gas cloud. Who ever heard of darts coming out of a bladder?”

Siobhan eyed the chest. “I see no bladder. That is a containment bulb for a deadly Mage’s misery spell. We spellcasters must be wary.”

I pushed the elf out of the way. “That can’t be right. I’ve been in six dungeons, and I’ve never even heard of a Mage’s misery before. I don’t think that’s a real thing. It’s got to be a poison needle, if anything.”

“Darts!”

“Gas cloud!”

“Mage’s misery!”

“Poison toad?”

I looked up from the chest. “What? Who said that?”

Caltrop shrugged. “If there’s a bladder and you think it’s poison, maybe the bladder’s holding a toad, so it could be a poison toad.”

I sighed. “I can assure you there’s no toad pushed into that trap.”

The others continued arguing, with alternating shouts of “Darts!” and “Gas cloud!” gaining momentum. Jexica kneeled down to eye the lock. 

I tried to explain, “Look, it really is a simple case of-”

“Okay, here goes, trying to disarm the gas cloud,” Jexica said, poking her tools into the key hole.

“No, wait!”

Too late. There was a click, and then a snick. Jexica looked down aghast at her finger tip. “Ooh, I feel a little sick,” she said, and then slumped to the floor.

“Gah. You fools, you didn’t let me finish. This first dungeon is filled with simple creatures who can’t manage complicated traps. Some of them don’t have any traps at all, but if they do, the only possible trap in the Troll Tunnels is a poison needle. My old team opened hundreds of them, and that’s all we'll see until the next dungeon.”


The noise died down. Everyone turned sheepish, except Jexica, who was turning green and moaning.

-----
This was an excerpt from The Eight-Bit Bard. The complete novel is Kindle format through Amazon.