Bach to Work: Choosing not to work at home

Mid-afternoon, before today turned into another moment fleeted and gone, I put a CD of Bach on the stereo and set to accomplishing several fixed tasks: Do the dishes, clean up the kitchen counters, make our dining table look less like an office desk and more like a formal dining table, read my Bible (I'm following a daily schedule on this), write this journal and buy some essentials and maybe something for supper at the supermarket. I was almost finished transforming the dining table when the Bach ended. Fortunately the neatness and order component was near accomplished at this point, otherwise, with the next disk being Ravel I might have lost myself for lack of structure.

As I anticipate a new career as a writer, this day, like many others that I have passed here at home, confirms to me that I can't expect to be successful writing while working out of my home. Too many distractions here - the phone, the mail, e-mail, the internet, food, or cleaning up from feasts gone by. At the depths of despondency, when I realise that I am getting nowhere in terms of meaningful work, sometimes I'll even totally give up and watch television, which doesn't put me out of my misery, it just blunts the pain of a lost day.

Can I really be disciplined enough to be a writer? What if the writing turns into my least favourite chore and my home becomes a welcome distraction? To combat this most sure destiny I have already decided on office space for my new writing enterprise. I've decided that the Westmount library offers a vastly superior work environment. Unlike the dining room table, where I write today, if I leave books or magazines on my library desk some of the night help is sure to pick up after me. If I walk to work it's a good half hour from home so I can even have a commuting routine. I can't imagine suffering from writer's block after such a walk.

I'm so excited about all the possibilities of this new career that I think I will start working part-time there tomorrow. My average sausage work week is two days - one non-stop 20 hour day and one day to recover from it. That will leave me 3 days per week to get a head start on a new routine.  If I have the discipline to show up at my new office regularly and write, starting on a part-time basis, that should help me know if I am called to writing or if it is just something that I'm occasionally good at.

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