Writers Unbound

Well, this weekend we finally finished cleaning all the dust and detritus from the construction that’s been ongoing since the first week in June. Workers attacked every room in my house. My new home office–actually my re-tooled original home office–is finally ready. For the next two days, I’ll be purging old paperwork, looking over wannabe manuscripts, and deciding which books I’ll keep and which titles will head to charity. I have entirely too many books. I have entirely too many office gadgets, writing pens depleted of ink, and stick-it notes with phone numbers I cannot identify. I must have at least 10,000 business cards collected over the years at book festivals, trade shows and during interviews.

When we moved to Florida, my original home office was a small room off the back entry way. When I say small, I mean small. It’s a former spacious laundry room. In South Carolina, I had the grandaddy office–a huge downstairs room large enough to justify the moniker ‘library.’

Ironically, if I look at the work I’ve written that won awards, as well as the two books I completed, all of it was written in the unpretentious small room.

Two years ago, we moved my office from the small whatever room to a large room just off the backyard deck. I loved the space and I set out to fill up every inch of it. I loved the view–our backyard is lush green, filled with trees and all sorts of stalks that bloom. Hummingbirds and butterflies are common.

But I soon realized that gorgeous outside view was a complete distraction. In addition, the bright light really bothered my eyes. Besides all that, the family wanted that room–”a media room” they said.

So I agreed. That began a cycle of tiling the floor, building shelves, and moving all those supplies out of that small room.

This time I’m doing it right. I am clearing out every scrap of anything that isn’t essential to my business.

So I’ll be offline Tuesday, July 31, and Wednesday, August 1. Then I’ll return to share tales of my move and some news as well.

Word Press, Technorati, Tags, home office, writing room, writing business, freelance, office supplies, office equipment

After moving to Florida, I set up my home office in our sunroom. My former home was an old one, with lots of nooks, crannies and excess space. I had a large room that was perfect for an at-home freelance writing business.

In our newer home here, there wasn’t a great place for a workroom. I didn’t think we had much of a choice.

Then we decided to do extensive remodeling. As the contractors ripped up old floor tile, I studied a room off our back entry way. Technically, it’s a supply room. Technically, it’s a former laundry room. But I realized it was plenty big enough for a home office, especially now that I work on a laptop instead of a desktop computer. With everything moved out of it, ‘everything’ being defined as an obscene collection of clutter and cleaning supplies and tools, I can tell the room is actually bigger than I realized.

The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea.

I’ve always joked to friends I have an office Stephen King might envy. There’s a view of our backyard and deck area. We have old oaks, Sago Palms and a big oleander that blooms dark pink slightly lethal blossoms each year. I catch glimpses of hawks, songbirds and an occasional turtle. Butterflies and hummingbirds feed on the Lantana right by my corner window. The sunroom has seven windows in all. Very inspiring. But there are also drawbacks.

I get distracted very easily. For one thing, we have this chicken that showed up two years ago and decided she’d stay. She flew over the back fence and adopted us. She’s still basically untamed; try to touch her and you will feel the wrath of her beak. But she likes attention. She’ll show up at the door and peck on the glass until I go out and talk to her.

Then there’s the glare. I end up closing all the blinds in the afternoon because the sun is so bright it drives my eyes straight to the nearest bottle of eyedrops.

There’s also the traffic. My daughters and their friends always use the sunroom door when they head to the pool, despite the availability of a very good exit door in the family room.

Things are topsy turvy here with all the house renovations—one fellow fell through our garage ceiling not long ago, sustaining no serious injuries—but I’m planning my new workspace with enthusiasm.

It’s a lot smaller than the space I have now. But what’s important is that it’s more private and there are no windows.

Every writer needs a place of her own. Whether it’s a corner or a full room doesn’t matter. It’s what you do with the space that counts.

Word Press, Technorati, Tags, home office, writing, freelance, writing business, home remodeling