I wish I didn’t find it deadly. But I do.
I keep meticulous little files of monies paid in, monies paid out. I have all the cash receipts in clear polywallets, labelled by month. I file the bank statements for all three accounts, and the credit card, and the PayPal statements, and the pay slips (paper and electronic), and the P60 and the invoices and so on.
At the moment that means two fat ring-binders, one purple and one yellow. One of my procrastination techniques is buying new ring-binders or wallets or cardboard folders to keep things in. Then I have a nice black box for packing things up to take to the accountant to get checked. And special books for recording income and expenditure, all divided into columns so I can see what costs what.
But in the end, I have to sit down and DO it. You can’t sell poetry without a reckoning. So I begin.
At this point, I find I’ve lost some essential document or other, and go into panic mode. I hate this moment. All my careful filing is pointless because X is missing. And X, usually, is not missing at all. X is just mis-filed, or staring me in the face.
The problem is simply I haven’t done this stuff for a long time so I’ve forgotten how. I completely forget from one year to another, as though my brain conspires in the obliteration.
So I have to teach myself all over again — slowly at first, then gradually approaching a speed that’s acceptable. It’s going to take days but it is going to get done.
And then I see all the neat little columns of handwriting, and the bits I highlight and the bits I underline in red, and the sums that add up, and I start to feel quietly pleased.
(No, I am not using spreadsheets. I have thought about it, and the reckoning bit would be quicker, but it would mean more hours at a screen, and I’m already spending enough. ‘Spending’ — ha! – how the imagery of finance creeps into every single concept of time.)
This week the snow helped. It was calm and white and irrevocable. It sat there waiting for me to get the accounts moving (I started and then stopped again during the October week’s holiday). The accounts were at the top of my ‘to do’ list, where they’ve been for approximately two months. So I began, looking up from time to time at the gleaming icicles.
It’s not so bad. If I completed the accounts records every month, they would never get so huge as to LOOM over me. I say this every year.
I’ll give myself a treat later today and start folding the Christmas cards for the subscriber mailshot. . . or read some of the submissions pile. Some really lovely poems have come in this week. NO, NO, NO POEMS!!!
