I’m lucky that we have a study, a room in the house with a desk, where the PC lives and where we keep most of our many books. In theory this gives me a place to hide away, free from interruptions, when I’m writing. The thing is, that’s not what happens in practice.
For practical reasons, I’m the one who normally answers the door to take deliveries etc or takes the cars to and from the garage when they need attention. I also do most of the domestic chores and some of these need to be done during the day. And then there are the unexpected things, like a leaking dishwasher or a tripped fuse.
The long and the short of it is that I almost never get an uninterrupted day and have been forced to adapt my approach to writing so it fits in with the real world. I won’t lie, there are times when my work suffers because of this. After all, it’s damn hard getting back in the flow when you’ve been yanked out of it. Occasionally, I’ve had to walk away and leave the writing alone because I’ve not been able to re-focus my attention properly.
Down goes the word count. Scenes your mind was joyfully pulling together are gone forever. And that deep, wonderful sense of being in your happy place has gone up in smoke.
But though I sometimes grumble or even throw a tantrum, like a baby, I know I’m being unrealistic to expect more. Life is what it is and I share it with other people. From time-to-time it is for me to give and not to take and I just have to adapt my writing approach to fit in.
What about you, do you have somewhere you can escape to when you’re writing, safe in the knowledge that you will be free of interruptions, or have you had to learn how to be creative in a more chaotic environment?
