Though it may sound like a lie, I basically haven’t had a day off from my job since 2014. Even on the vacations I’ve taken, my computer is with me. I already work from home, so it doesn’t matter where home is. Have Internet, can work–seven days a week. Recently we hired another person to work with me in records, so there are three of us now. It’s a huge help in taking pressure off of me, and in time, I know I’ll have real days off. For now, we call Wednesdays and Thursdays my days off (even though Thursdays I’m up before dawn getting ready to shoot photos at our transports–but that’s the volunteer part of my work, so I still count it as a day off). ANYWAY, I usually end up working at least part of those days, so what I have right now are blocks of hours off on more days of the week, and that helps!
As a result, I’m beginning to see progress in my to-do list for getting our home back in order. There is light at the end of the tunnel with the recovery, and it’s possible by the end of October, that will be complete, my office and craft room will be fully functional, and life will have some normalcy again. I’m not sure what normalcy is, honestly. But I know that one of the reasons my energy remains depleted, despite the fact that my workload is slowly being divided among three of us, that my home is slowly emerging, and that I fiercely protect my right to sleep undisturbed, is that I have so little creative time. My brain is always teeming with ideas, and I just need periods of uninterrupted time when I’m not exhausted to make those ideas reality.
Last night Tim sent me a link to an old interview with Aerosmith’s guitarist Joe Perry, which I watched first thing this morning, and something he said in that interview was like a sign that I’m on the right track with one of the projects in my brain. The nice thing about this point in my life as a writer is that I genuinely want to write only for my own pleasure. I’ve taken away the pressure of “would this sell,” “would people read this,” “would my editor want this,” and what I want to work on is only for my own satisfaction. So before I fall asleep at night, I give myself time to think of the novel I want to write, working out scenes and exploring my characters’ psyches. Over the past few months, I’ve struggled with how to make one of my weaker characters one who I’m better satisfied with, and an idea has played at the edges of my brain, and the Joe Perry interview gave me a “yes, you are on the right track” moment. Affirmation can come from anywhere, but it’s not surprising that Tim was its catalyst, because even when he doesn’t realize it, he’s always a source of inspiration.
I left the house this morning with a list of errands, one of those being to buy Joe Perry’s memoir, which is a few years old. I was lucky enough to find it, along with Keith Richards’s, which my brother recommended that I read when it came out ten years ago, and now finally I will. Along with those, I bought some art supplies and other things I needed to take care of a couple of dear friends’ birthdays. So though I ended up spending the rest of my “day off” working, I’m set up for more creative activities here at home during my Becky time.
