Brain-fry
Okay, it is just possible that I might have miscalculated and possibly taken on more than I can handle…
I got an office! An off-site, not-in-my-bedroom workspace just for writing, and the business of writing, and graphic arts related to writing, and lounging about researching and reading, which is of course always related to writing.
Oh, and the hand-binding of blank books, which is just a hobby, but for which there is very little space at home.
So, of course, this space now needs to be set up.  With bookcases, and a desk and a file cabinet, and other storage, and this tall table I use as a drafting table, and I do need a new drafting board and stool… And a comfy chair to sit in, with a side-table for my pot of tea, and teacup and all.
I possess most of these things, fortunately. Like the bookcases, and computer equipment currently deployed in my current workspace. As for the other items, many of them are shoved up against the wall in the basement and have to be pulled out, sorted through, cleaned, etc. I even have a little knee-high fridge so the half-and -half for my coffee doesn’t go bad, not to mention sandwiches and cans of soda.
And once that stuff is elsewhere, my bedroom can become more like an actual bedroom! With an easily accessible closet! And a setup that encourages reading and relaxing, playing guitar and such.
So the big sorting-through-of-stuff is in progress. Unloading bookcases, figuring which books stay, which go. (I don’t need all my science books, but I like them. They make a place homey. And I should leave most of the fiction, but some are especially inspiring! And some I haven’t read yet!)
The lease starts November 1, so I’ve got just a handful of days to get all the stuff sorted out, and find some local guy with a van to move it.  (I would normally do that myself, but I just don’t have all my stamina back yet.)
Sure, I can do all that in a week, right? Organize everything, buy some new stuff, completely set up an office, completely reconfigure a bedroom into a bedroom — piece of cake.
Yeah, not quite. By Friday I was already suffering from serious brain-fry.
Revised plan: get the big pieces ready to be moved: bookcases, boxes of books, table for a desk, drafting table, little fridge.  Storage for supplies.  Then hire the guys, move it all in, and get that one room set up as well as possible with what will be on hand.
And then drop everything else.  Let the bedroom remain partly-assembled and probably chaotic, because, remember what else happens on November 1?
That’s right. NaNoWriMo. Signed up for that thing, didn’t I? Yep.
I will still be only three days a week at the Day Job, but the hours will increase significantly in November. I might have enough energy to continue improving the office and/or the bedroom while still cranking out the wordage — or the extra hours of Day Job might make me extra-tired.
Although I’d love to have everything perfect as I go into the intensiveness of the NaNoWriMo experience, I don’t need it to be perfect. I just need it to exist!  And be habitable.
I’ll sort the rest out in December.
Anybody else doing NaNoWriNo?
October 26th, 2014 at 11:27 pm
Makes me tired just to think of it all. I think doing it in stages is just fine. Don’t beat yourself up. Will you have regular office hours? Does that help?
One of the library workers at my local branch is doing NaNoWriMo but I don’t know what his genre is (if any).
October 28th, 2014 at 4:01 pm
Eventually, when I quit the Day Job (sometime next year, I hope), I’ll have regular office hours. But for now I feel like I need a dedicated space, and some solitude. The place I’m leasing has that, and is pretty affordable.
October 28th, 2014 at 12:02 am
A Room of Your Own! How perfectly lovely! Take it slowly. The planning is part of the joy.
October 28th, 2014 at 4:02 pm
Alas, I don’t want to take it slowly — I want it done and finished! Planning rooms: not my idea of fun.
October 28th, 2014 at 3:40 pm
I don’t know how people do NaNoWriMo. It’s so completely alien to my creative process, and, flawed as it is, it’s the one that makes the most and best stuff for me. I live in awe at people who can crank out words that make sense, first draft or otherwise.
October 28th, 2014 at 4:15 pm
It’s absolutely alien to my usual process too. And that’s sort of why I want to try it. To see what it’s like.
I write best when I only write — that is, no Day Job. It is fantastically difficult for me to get real writing done when I’m also otherwise gainfully employed.
But given that I can’t get out of the job presently, it seemed like it might be worth trying the NaNoWriMo approach for the space of one month. I certainly wouldn’t want to do that all the time! I would probably end a) writing crap and/or b) going mad.
October 28th, 2014 at 4:59 pm
Do you have plans for what you intend to write?
October 31st, 2014 at 3:35 pm
I’m pretty sure one of the things about NaNoWriMo is that the pages don’t have to make sense — they just have to be pages! With words!
But I find that the more you free-write, the more sense you are able to make while doing so.