Sense and Sentimentality

Christmas is over.  Our already full toy shelves have moved into a whole new realm and I'm not sure we'll ever find the floor again.  This afternoon I tried to convince my kids that we need to get rid of some of the old toys so that there is room for the new ones.  I'll be the first to admit that this is HARD for me.  I'm sometimes burdened with excessive sentimentality.  "Oh, Grandma gave it to them---we should keep it," or, less sentimental, but equally difficult, "I found it at such a good price and they haven't played with it much!"  But there comes a point when sentimentality must give way for good sense.  There is NO WAY that we can keep all these toys!  And yet, we're having a hard time letting them go.  Okay, I'm having a hard time and my two boys are having a hard time.  Oddly enough, my very tender, motherly daughter is fine with tossing out most of the stuff.  She tells me to put the stuffed animals in the "Give away" box, and they are promptly rescued by one of the boys.  Who would have thought?

So how do you get rid of the old, worn out (or nearly new, but never touched) stuff?  I'm appallingly bad at organizing too, which makes it more difficult.  Or maybe it's not me, it's that my three gang up on me and I'm left wondering what happened.

And the new stuff has to stay.  Especially my daughter's new Mulan and Shang dolls.  Who doesn't want those?

Now, how does this relate to writing?  It doesn't really.  Unless I want to go off again on cutting darlings and how hard it is and how that relates to getting rid of the old toys so that the new, and better, toys can have room.  But I probably don't need to expound on that anymore.

My preoccupation with the toys has hindered the actual writing a bit---it's hard to get to the computer when the floor is littered with various knights and princesses and all their accoutrements, but obviously I made it through the mess.

I've been working on a new story.  I thought I had it all the basics worked out and then it insisted that it needed to be in a different setting.  I'm not sure what it is with me and setting, but my stories rarely end up where I first set them.  The last novel I wanted to set on the Oregon coast, but that turned out to be the wrong place to start it.  So I ended up with Israel/Jordan (there were some geographical features in the region that fit with was the story needed), but at WIFYR this past summer, everyone told me that the setting had to be changed.  There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it.  I had to change it.  They insisted.  So I changed it to Turkey.  While writing that, I thought about a fairy tale that I keep attempting to write a retelling of, but it has never worked out right.  I decided that it would be fun to set it in a country similar to the Ottoman Empire.  I planned it all out, started writing, but it wasn't working.  I thought it was the POV, since I couldn't decide between first and third.  So I kept opening the document, sighing, and wasting time doing other things (looking at Christmas sales online and not buying anything).  And then, during all the time I was NOT thinking about the story, I somehow decided that it needed a different setting.  I've been working on it and I'm pretty excited about it!  But, because I know me, I'll probably end up changing it again, so I won't say what it is at the moment.

How is writing going for you?  And does anyone have any suggestion for dealing with the influx of new toys?