I got myself an office. In the house.
For years, I have roamed like a nomad through our home. Mostly, I wrote in the family room, laptop on my lap and Turner Classic Movies on, for background noise. Sometimes I would move into the living room. When I was absolutely determined to finish a manuscript, I took it to the dining room or the kitchen, sat at the table, and pounded out 20,000 words in less than a week.
At one point, I thought perhaps the dining room would make an okay office - we only use the table during the holidays, when we have friends over.
Our house has four bedrooms. One is our master suite. Although he lives in an apartment in Long Beach, Marcus still has a toehold in his old bedroom. I kind of like it when he comes over. The third bedroom is the guest room. I like guests, so I don't want to force them out of anything.
That leaves the fourth bedroom. When we first moved in, we made this our Computer Room. We had two desks with two computers. Marcus had his little Mac (remember those little, cube-ish numbers?), Dale had his computer, and we put my old daybed in there in case we had an overflow of guests. It worked.
Over the years, the computers became obsolete, more computers moved in (they also became obsolete), and the room became known (at least to me) as the Computer Graveyard. Old users manuals and the packaging of video games and learning DVDs stuffed the shelves. Towers were lined up under the desk, and old scanners and printers were atop it. At one point, I gathered up all the cables and hard drives and other kinds of unnamed hardware and put them into Rubbermaid tubs, which I stuffed into the corner.
When I mentioned that I'd like an office and maybe I could turn Marcus' room into one, Dale scowled and said, "Why can't you use the computer room?" (He swears he never said this, but it's what I heard.) Thinking about using the computer room sent me into convulsions. How could I possibly THINK in a room that looks like this?
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| To be fair, this was the room at its worst. |
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| After cleaning, but I still can't take a picture of the desks - too much stuff! |
One afternoon, I was in the garage, sweating my guts out in the summer heat, digging through cardboard boxes on shelves in the corner. I was looking for more copies of THE HOT MESS, and cursing that I had to drag everything out of the way just to get to my book stuff.
That's when it hit me.
The book stuff, the things I'm always trying to find, are out in the garage and difficult to pull out. The computer room was filled with stuff nobody was ever looking for.
Why not switch the two?
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| All clean, except for the FAX machine. Sometime we need to FAX things, oddly enough. |
After two days of packing, schlepping, more schlepping, unpacking, more packing, and a wee bit of decorating, I have an office. It's organized, it's quiet, I love it. And it has paid me back in two meaningful ways, in the mere three days that I've had it.
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| Done! That's my folded laptop on the desk. All of it was Dino approved. |
1) I'm more productive. Away from the family room and its distractions, I can put on a little music and write. I've written over 5000 words in two days. I feel more driven to work out a story problem than stop and "take a little break."
2) I'm more organized with my days. I used to have a problem getting any reading done. Writers need to read, in general, and I have friends with books - I'd like to honor them by reading their words. When I was in the family room, I felt like the words I wrote were dribbling from my fingers at a snail's pace. I had no time to read. Now, I can write like a fiend until 7 pm or so, then retire to the family room and open up my Kindle (or a physical book).
So, if you need me, I'll be at my desk. Don't worry - Dino will keep me company.
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| Anybody need boxes? |
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