Making A Separation

First, calm down.  I know it’s become fashionable for people to announce broken relationships casually on their blogs, when you had no clue anything was wrong.  This is not what I’m doing.  My marriage is fine.  We have, at various times, threatened to divorce the kids, or at least to run away from the kids and the house for some more or less extended period.  I think normal people call this “vacation.”  It sounds like a lovely idea – and maybe we’ll have enough money to, sometime.

What I’m going to talk about, though, relates to running away from the kids, and the house, and also to breaking a habit almost as old as our marriage, and one which I always assumed I liked.

I’ve been working at home – working as defined as making money or having expectations of making money – for fourteen years.  I worked at home before that, but there is a different mind-set when you NEVER expect to be published than when you know you can sort of, almost, make what could be called a living.

My offices have varied.  When we lived in Manitou Springs, I had the entire third floor with a bathroom of its own.  This worked very well.  To an extent it was like being “at work.”  I went up sometime at eight am when I dropped the last kid off at school, and came down at five or five thirty when Dan came off work.  I even had a coffee maker there, so I didn’t need to come down to the kitchen.  Oh, okay, there was picking up the kids there as an interruption – until they were old enough to walk home alone – and the office wasn’t impervious to kids.  When I started out, and the first two years as a pro, Marshall usually played at my feet while I worked.  But those are minor adjustments.  The important thing is that “third floor = job” to me.  This was set firmly in my mind, so when I started reading blogs, I’d bring the laptop down to the living room or movie room for that.

Then we moved.  And we THOUGHT the arrangements here would be similar.  We have a third floor, though not with a bathroom.  I figured I could afford the occasional run down the stairs for bathroom breaks.  Only it didn’t work that way.

Look, the house is really well built and insulated.  If I’m up there, I can’t hear anything.  This started by being an issue because I couldn’t hear the kids (8 and 12 by the time we moved here) and I realized I was used to keeping a “sweep” for “trouble” while writing.  I couldn’t write without it.  Paranoia just mounted till I had to come down every five minutes.

And now that frankly I can trust them on their own (except they’re likely to come to the bottom of the stairs and mumble, “Mom, is it okay if we set fire to the neighbor’s political sign?” and then swear up and down I gave them permission) I can’t write up there because I’m still sweeping the house with my mind: for intruders; for kitteh breakage; for…

So four months after moving in, I setup half the bedroom as an office.  It has worked… sort of.  The bedroom is a double room, and I separated it with a curtain.  I also use the nook downstairs as an art nook, and the TV room for publishing and…

If you’re frowning at the page… yeah.  See, the thing is I know our work doesn’t quite fit in this house because at this point Dan and I have two offices each, and one shared, and none of them is QUITE right.

Again, let me emphasize I LOVE working at home.  It allows me to be here for emergencies.  It allows me to put a load of clothing in while I finish a blog.  It allows me to pet cats while working.  It allows me to answer the door, take messages, and keep the family running.

And if you’re frowning at the page… yeah.

The problem is exactly that.  For the last five   years I’ve found that if I spend 2 hours a day writing, it’s a lot. And it’s not uninterrupted writing – oh no – it’s five minutes here, ten minutes there.

In the past I found when my time becomes fragmented like that, I end up having to go to a hotel for a week to just get the books RIGHT in my head.  And then I can finish.  But that, even at a cheap hotel (can’t be too cheap.  Bed bugs are, pardon me, a right bugger when you’re trying to write) runs to $500 or so.  And it became very expensive to take these writing retreats every month, which – now that I’m trying to finish indie stuff too – is what I’d need.

Also, I became aware of … “pressure”.  I was never off.  Particularly now with Indie stuff and with having assumed the duties of cover director at Naked Reader Press.  There was always something I HAD to do.  I’ve always worked the occasional weekend or evening, but now it was EVERY one of them, so I never had time for my family and I felt like I was under the gun 24/7.

I always know when I’m about to blow a psychological gasket, because I start daydreaming of kidnaping Dan and vanishing to Denver for a long weekend.  (Which still wouldn’t be a bad idea.)

I also, being somewhat self-aware, started sweeping craigslist for offices for rent.  The problem was something in a relatively safe neighborhood (not the best in the world, but I’d not get raped coming out late afternoon in Winter) and at a price I could reasonably expect to make back.  And still I hesitated, because, dang it, I LIKE working at home.

For a few months I had what I call Office-ish.  Someone was allowing me to borrow a cube at their company and it was convenient because Dan could drop me off on the way to work.  It worked relatively well – I finished three books – but because the arrangement was ad-hoc and temporary I could not make the space mine, and also I was there very unofficially and people working around me got curious.  It wasn’t “my place” and I felt like I was imposing.

That no longer operates as that particular space has closed, as the company downsized.  So…  I was back at home and scanning craigslist.

Last week, unexpectedly, I found an add for an office that looked like it fit expectations, at a price I could reasonably hope to make back if I wrote even ONE indie novel a year in excess of what I have to deliver.  I went to see it.  I’m not going to say it is the thing poets sing of.  It is, to be blunt, a closet.  A walk in closet, with a window, but a closet nonetheless.  About the size of your average cube.

However, I can hang pictures on the wall, I can bring in my desk and tea things, the bathroom is just down the hall, and it is a very quiet building.  (Most of the time, there’s sudden eruptions of clapping from the Black Ribboners down the hall, but that’s survivable.)  More importantly, it’s within easy (and cheap) driving distance.  And it has plenty of daylight (which makes a difference.  It’s the reason I’ve rejected most other offices I could afford.  I’m photo-voltaic.)

It’s been almost a week (I started Wednesday) since I’ve been going there, and here’s what I found: a) I get a lot more done.  Five to six hours uninterrupted work really accomplishes a lot more than five minute increments amounting to the same time.  b) it gives me permission to not work at home, or at least not work at writing.  When I come home, I’ve usually written everything I CAN write, so I’m free to hang out, do crochet (which I haven’t had time to do in years and yeah, it’s my one feminine gift.  No, I don’t do wool.  I do miles and miles of fillet crochet.)  

More importantly though, it’s the sense that I can RELAX when out of the office.  When I’m there, I work VERY intensely.  When out of there, I don’t have to.  (Mind you, I still will for two nights a week or so, on publishing or NRP stuff.  But it’s not every night, and there is no feeling of “my work is never done.”)

Mind you, it means I’m gone most of the day, so if you’re sending urgent emails and no one answers, I’m not actually ignoring you.  I’m just at the office.  Again, if you’re the kind of person likely to have an emergency I CAN do something about, you have my cell number.  Send me a text.  Depending on the emergency, I’ll either tell you when I can deal with it, or call one of the kids to get into my computer and deal.

I’ll keep you posted on how it works out, ultimately, but for now it promises to be a boon to production and to permit me to make back several times the price of the office – as well as perhaps improve my mental health.  (Of course, if it doesn’t, I give it up after a year.)

Again, we’ll see.  But one week in, I see the virtues of making a separation between my main work and my part time jobs and family.

Now, if I can start writing these posts at the office the day before, I can leave for the office at a decent hour.