lorri giovinco-harte

Since this is a new site, I’ve been browsing the pages  of other authors to see what types of things they write about in the hope of finding inspiration.  I’m a big fan of The Wheel of Time fantasy series by Robert Jordan.  Although Jordan passed away before releasing the 12th and final book in the series, he left behind detailed notes which fantasy writer, Brandon Sanderson has been turning into manuscripts for publication.  There have been various release dates for the much anticipated books, so I check back on occasion to see what is going on.

As I was browsing the site, I came cross a post which showcased a portion of Jordan’s weapons collection.  I don’t know enough about the late author to realize he was a weapons collector, but I did understand that he was a former military man.  What struck me about the collection, however, was not simply the scope and size, but the meticulous manner in which it seems to have been kept. (See link)

It got me thinking about whether or not I had any kind of a collection that  I could showcase here.  Anything I own of of real “collectible value” is sitting in storage back in the United States and I haven’t lived here long enough to amass much of anything – or have I?

I started looking around the house for evidence of a collection of sorts, but didn’t find much. Other than photographs, I don’t seem to have much of anything.  I was about to give up when I realized that I do have a rather, large collection of something  – my shoes.

Truthfully, my current collection is about half that of what I had back in the states, but I was forced to discriminate when we came here.  Most of the items in the collection were brought over by plane, which is part of the reason we had to pay such large fees for excessive baggage.  Luckily, I did most of the packing before we left, so my husband had no idea about how many pairs I crammed into the cases until they were being weighed at the airport.

Anyway, I decided to use the post on Jordan’s blog as inspiration and am subsequently displaying a photo of my collection.  Here it is:

This is actually only one closet’s worth, but I think you get the general idea.

I don’t think this is a particularly large collection compared to others I have seen but what really interests me is the stark difference between Jordan’s fastidiously organized collection and mine.  In makes me wonder about the relationship between an author’s focus and his organization skills.  Jordan’s collection reveals a very disciplined mind and could very well explain the prolific nature of his writing.

I’m a little worried, therefore, about what my collection says about the nature of mine.

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