When you move, what area in the house has to be set up first?

For me, it’s my desk. I just don’t feel settled until the papers and various miscellany are in their proper drawers or those familiar funnies and quotes are back under my glass desktop. Clothes can languish in a suitcase, boxes of food can sit on the counters and books can be set any-old-where on the shelves, but I must have a place to sit and scribble my thoughts and ideas.

I’m like that when I write too. Before I can start scribbling I have to have all my ducks lined up in a row — in my head, that is.  I have to ‘see’ the complete scene in my head before I can explore it on paper, and if the camera in my brain finds a blank spot (What do the kitchen cabinets look like?), I cannot continue until I figure it out.  That’s my version of Writer’s Block. I’ve been known to go for days or weeks before I can finally finish writing out that scene. And writing down various ideas doesn’t work for me; my head’s gotta figure it out first.

Why can’t you unpack the brain as easily as you can a cardboard box?