The photo above is of my own shop. I made the mess and I promise I'll clean it up. It never looks quite so bad when I'm working on a book, but when I'm just working on stuff, as I am now (a weird coffee table, some boxes and a couple sawhorses) it can go to indecipherable chaos in a hurry. My wife is a librarian, so our home is Dewey Decimal perfection at nearly all times. My shop is 180° otherwise. My wife one day referred to it as the wilderness, and with my love of the forests, I felt complimented.

I used to apologize for messy conditions when I had guests. Then I noticed that people who lived and worked in such orderly places never apologized for their lack of creativity. There is a strong relationship between chaos, order and creativity. In my Zen days, I came up with a saying that fits: "Confusion is the source of subsequent enlightenment." With that said, however, it is time to go clean the shop.