No, I didn’t start a new full-time non-writing job. (Phew!) In this case, “back to work” means back at my writing desk in the attic, after an extended season of holiday travel (including two weeks in northern California in early December to help my sister and her husband out after the birth of their adorable new daughter).
In addition to the aforementioned two weeks, I also spent a week in Louisiana with my husband, visiting his family, and a week visiting my parents in Nova Scotia over American Thanksgiving. Since it’s very difficult to get any writing done when I’m visiting family out of town and feel I ought to be social, that means I haven’t gotten much work done in quite some time.
I’ve been writing “full-time” for 5 months now (interpret the quote marks as you will), and, while I certainly haven’t accomplished as much as I’d hoped, I am accomplishing far more than I could while I had a day job. I’ve finished the first draft of a short story, a novelette (i.e., a really long short story), am almost finished with the final revisions of a novella (a short novel), and am on Chapter 7 of my Really Long Novel (about 26,000 words written on the novel, or around 130 double-spaced pages). Hopefully the next few months will see significant progress on the novel, and a few pieces of short fiction finished to the point where I can start submitting them to magazines.
I still haven’t switched my office. When my husband and I moved into our 2-bedroom apartment back in April, I had a full-time job as a research scientist, while he worked from home. It seemed only fair that he should have the second bedroom to use as his office, while I set up my computer in a corner of the attic. However, since then, he’s started a full-time “away from home” job, and the pharmaceutical company I’d been working for decided my skills could be put to better use writing fiction. We were supposed to switch offices as soon as I was laid off, but we’ve been putting it off, and putting it off … I should point out that the procrastination here is entirely mine. Donald is in no way trying to keep the more desirable office space downstairs for himself. But, somehow, there always seems to be something more important to do. We really do need to switch, though. In August, there were a few days when it was pushing 100 degrees up here, even with the air conditioner running. And, on Monday and Tuesday, I found that it was just barely tolerable if I wore a hat, set the electric space heater immediately behind my chair, and covered my legs with an electric blanket. And tucked my hands under the blanket every few moments to warm them up a bit.
Today’s much better. I have the blanket draped over my legs, but it’s not turned on.
Happy New Year, and may 2012 be more productive (and climate-controlled) for all of us!