Howdy fellow aspiring writers. Well, maybe not aspiring. That’s hardly a fair label – the act of writing we are accomplishing (by and large), it’s the finishing and publishing that makes us all circle around the wagon together, looking for the secret sauce that will elevate us to internet fame and random snapshots of our works in public places.
Like many dreamers, I too thought it would be great if I could just work from home. Imagine, all of the time you could save and put into writing! Make your own schedule! Accomplish that novel!
I must be doing something wrong. Here are the things I’ve figured out so far, though: Writing in the same physical – and mental – space that you do your day job in is tough.
1. If the space and tools you use are the same, then its easy to find yourself falling into the trap of just doing more office work. OK, it’s easy for me to anyway.
2. It’s hard to get that mental disconnect from the day job that you really need to be able to stretch your creativity.
3. Finally, its bad for your body. If you’re working for 8-10 hours on the day job at your desk, and then trying to do an hour or two of writing – that’s up to 12+ hours of sitting in the exact same chair. That isn’t good, and I know it isn’t, but it’s also hard to justify leaving your desk when you have just one more thing to do, type, save, or note down.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You feel drained. Sitting at your desk on the weekend, you don’t feel at all compelled to do any writing, because this is where you just spent 5 days, or 90 million hours, doing paid office work.
What, you thought I had solutions to these? Nope. I’m sharing so you can avoid my pitfalls. Even if that does mean you will be stepping on my face to do it. Don’t misunderstand me – working from home is awesome and wondrous and great, and really does give me a chance to see my family. Just don’t confuse working from home as meaning a better chance of writing. I made that mistake.
Related articles
- Why Post a Non-Writing Related Blog on a Blog About Writing?!? (marshasusantracy.wordpress.com)
- Were YOU Meant to Be a WRITER? Part 4 of 4 (thelivingnotebook.com)
- Writing When You Have a Day Job (persephonemagazine.com)
The myth of working from home for the aspiring writer http://t.co/whDYOuAmKd
To some extent, the inverse is also true. Spending my day working in the office (at work) makes it difficult to do any writing there, say, on my lunch hour at my meeting table. I’ve tried, but with limited success. What has helped is working on an entirely different machine (my Chromebook, for instance) and doing all of my writing on that same machine. So when the kids are getting ready for bed in the evenings, I am also spending 15 or 20 minutes in the rocking chair in our bedroom, writing on the same Chromebook I use for writing at lunch in the office.