Routine? Hmm. . . • 28 August 2008 • The SnowBlog

Routine? Hmm. . .

          


Hey there -- it's Not-Often-Heard-From-Anna.  It seems to me that whenever I make my presence known in the form of a Snowblog post, it's always because I have something to complain about.  But not this time!

See, a friend of mine recently became unemployed freelance, and he was having a difficult time giving structure to his days.  Knowing that I work from home, he asked me about my daily routine.  I blinked a few times and then tried this new word out for myself. 'Routine?'

It turns out that some people are suited for working from home and some just aren't.  And despite my utter lack of routine, I am definitely a work-from-home sort of person... It's a bit cheaty to say that I have NO daily routine -- but the scheduled events in my life don't have much to do with publishing (they have everything to do with food, in case you were wondering).  I explained my work-from-home philosophy to my friend thusly: Everything I do is work.  

In any given day, I have to run errands, take care of the garden, cook meals, tidy the house, make books, etc, etc.  Only one of those actually brings in money, but they all have to get done.  It makes no difference to the outside world if I decide to do one before the other, as long as all my tasks are completed when they need to be.  Sometimes I can sit at the computer for hours, working on a cover design, but other times I only manage to proofread ten pages of text before I flit outside to see if there are beans to pick for dinner.

The sort of work I do really lends itself to my approach.  There are deadlines to meet, and as long as I'm meeting them, everything runs smoothly.  I think my friend was a bit thanks-for-nothing after my explanation, since he was trying to come up with stories to pitch for radio -- something which takes much more 'push' than what I do.  I imagine he would have done much better chatting with Em, who's driven in ways I might never understand.

So I wonder about other people.  If you work in an office, are you one of those people who says, 'Ooh, I could NEVER work from home!' or do you think you would thrive on the lack of official structure?  I certainly find that writing is best done on some sort of schedule, but are there authors out there who sit down and write whenever the urge strikes?

As for me, I'm on a big proofreading binge right now, so I suppose I should scuttle back to that. . . maybe after I check for ripe tomatoes. 
Anna