Saturday 8 August 2020

Working from Home by Keren David

 My post is a follow up to Dawn's yesterday, in a way, in that it's about lockdown and how children's authors earn a living, but it's from a different angle.


Many of us augment a writing life with a portfolio of different ways of making money -  school visits, teaching creative writing, mentoring.


I did all those things, and enjoyed them all, but never made enough money to live on. So when a job came up four years ago, I took it. It was four days a week, so I thought I'd cram writing and school visits into a three day weekend.


My income shot up. My writing life...suffered. 


And then came lockdown. At first I thought working from home would give me the chance to have a more balanced life. I could combine writing and worklife more easily. With no commuting I'd have more time on my hands. Writing would fit more easily into my schedule. I'd breeze through with less to distract me. 

No. It hasn't been like that at all. 

Commuting time turns out to be useful thinking time. Working from home takes longer  -  more writing  of messages and having meetings with colleagues, for conversations that would take place across a desk. a remote working system that crashes. And it has been more stressful all round, with many crises. I've gone up to working five days a week. Great news for my income (balanced by the catastrophic effect of lockdown on my self-employed husband's business). Terrible news for my writing. 


And then the distractions. Four adults sharing a house. No real workspace. Lunch to be made every day. Ditto supper. Cats in and out of the back door, crying for their suppers at 4.30 (just because I'm here). A constant flow of parcel deliveries. And food deliveries. And phone calls. 

My concentration is shot to pieces. I'm constantly exhausted. My creativity has drained away. And although  I usually love the editing stage of a book...this summer, it's been a struggle to remember what my characters are called, let alone what their story is.

I keep vowing to wake at 6am, write before work officially starts. But then I  sleep through my alarm. This weekend I have a Zoom meeting about another creative project, and I need to edit at least ten chapters...so I get no free time, no exercise, no time off.


How do other writers manage to combine working from home and a creative life? And don't say ask for more time, because I've already done that more than once. This is not so much a blog post as a cry for help -  how can I make more time in the week? 





4 comments:

Anonymous said...

A room of one's own.... simple as that...

Nick Garlick said...

I sympathise enormously. My concentration's gone too. I've just learned to accept that I'll produce less. But that's easy for me to say and probably no help to you. Have you thought of making a timetable for everyone in the house? And designating specific work areas? Going to work provides a routine; can you create a routine at home, one you can stick to with the help of others? It might help, if only a little.

Rowena House said...

I feel for you hugely, Keren. Like Nick, I think that accepting normal levels of productivity aren't possible atm is a necessary protection for our mental health. Is there any way to get away and put physical distance between yourself and these constant demands on you? Being utterly rude & ruthless about my creative time works too for a while, but then demands lengthy apologies so not time effective overall!

Beautiful and Necessary said...

Keren, it was as if you reached into my pandemic angst and took a snapshot of the exhausted unending chaos there. I've taken the liberty of posting this on my fb page. Brilliant brilliant brilliant.
Thanks ever so.
Carrie