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| Learning to write in noisy places. (Geralt/Pixabay.com) |
“Eloise’s Rawther Unusual Halloween” plays on the TV to my left. My daughter, folding laundry behind me, blurts out the play by play on Eloise’s adventure and often throws in an update on how many clothes she has left.
Occasionally, my husband walks through, sometimes without saying a word, other times, asking how much longer I’ll be or what I’m thinking for dinner. “I hate to interrupt you, but … ,” he’ll begin.
Welcome to my home “office,” a small section of our small living room in our small home. Right now, I’m in limbo, that place between laid off and getting hired, and I want to spend this time developing my writing skills by writing this blog and other tasks.
I’m a slow writer who spends the bulk of her time trying to decide what to write, then how to write it. Composing a 300-word blog post, for example, sometimes takes me four or five hours. If I want to work as a writer someday, I’ll need to be speedier. I can’t help but wonder if I could write faster if I could minimize distractions. So, my husband and I have had a few thoughts on how we could make that happen:
The downside: I wouldn’t be able to write early in the morning or late at night without keeping my husband up.
Occasionally, my husband walks through, sometimes without saying a word, other times, asking how much longer I’ll be or what I’m thinking for dinner. “I hate to interrupt you, but … ,” he’ll begin.
Welcome to my home “office,” a small section of our small living room in our small home. Right now, I’m in limbo, that place between laid off and getting hired, and I want to spend this time developing my writing skills by writing this blog and other tasks.
I’m a slow writer who spends the bulk of her time trying to decide what to write, then how to write it. Composing a 300-word blog post, for example, sometimes takes me four or five hours. If I want to work as a writer someday, I’ll need to be speedier. I can’t help but wonder if I could write faster if I could minimize distractions. So, my husband and I have had a few thoughts on how we could make that happen:
Option 1: We move my office to a corner of our master bedroom.
The upside: I can close the door when I’m deep in thought.The downside: I wouldn’t be able to write early in the morning or late at night without keeping my husband up.
Option 2: We make our master bedroom a combined office.
My husband, who collects comic books and action figures, uses one of our smaller bedrooms as his home office. It’s where he keeps all the stuff I wouldn’t want in our living room. We’ve discussed making that room our bedroom and combining our home offices in the master bedroom.
The upside: Less traffic and no TV noise.
The downside: Oh my lord, moving all that furniture would be work. It could be worth it, or it could be a disaster. What if neither of us has good focus because we talk to each other too much or get on each other’s nerves by how loud we type, etc.? Then we’d just have to move everything back. Ugh.
The upside: All the quiet I could possibly want.
The downside: I couldn’t work outside of library hours. Plus, I am not trusting enough to leave my laptop on a table while I run to the ladies’ room, so every time I needed to go to the bathroom, I’d have to pack everything up.
None of those options is perfect. My preferred solution would be to hire a contractor to build me a small office off our living room, but, since I’m between jobs, that wouldn’t be the wisest thing to do.
So, for now, I’ll just make do. There’s only one way to do it: I’ve got to make the most of the time I have when the living room is least busy. That means not letting myself going to internet rabbit holes — I do an internet search for something I’m writing, but those search results make me curious about another topic, and then another, and then another, etc. (We all do that, right?)
I may even need to set my alarm for early, well before my daughter gets up for school, and getting in all the writing practice I can then.
Maybe one day, I’ll be able to earn money from writing at home, maybe even enough to make getting a new job unnecessary. If so, I’d be willing to give option 2 a shot. Or maybe I’ll hire that contractor.
The downside: Oh my lord, moving all that furniture would be work. It could be worth it, or it could be a disaster. What if neither of us has good focus because we talk to each other too much or get on each other’s nerves by how loud we type, etc.? Then we’d just have to move everything back. Ugh.
Option 3: I write outside the home.
I’ve thought about taking my laptop to the city library to write. It has really nice study room.The upside: All the quiet I could possibly want.
The downside: I couldn’t work outside of library hours. Plus, I am not trusting enough to leave my laptop on a table while I run to the ladies’ room, so every time I needed to go to the bathroom, I’d have to pack everything up.
None of those options is perfect. My preferred solution would be to hire a contractor to build me a small office off our living room, but, since I’m between jobs, that wouldn’t be the wisest thing to do.
So, for now, I’ll just make do. There’s only one way to do it: I’ve got to make the most of the time I have when the living room is least busy. That means not letting myself going to internet rabbit holes — I do an internet search for something I’m writing, but those search results make me curious about another topic, and then another, and then another, etc. (We all do that, right?)
I may even need to set my alarm for early, well before my daughter gets up for school, and getting in all the writing practice I can then.
Maybe one day, I’ll be able to earn money from writing at home, maybe even enough to make getting a new job unnecessary. If so, I’d be willing to give option 2 a shot. Or maybe I’ll hire that contractor.
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