So you know what comes next. A
complaint.
When people ask me how I’m doing, I often like to say, “I can’t
complain, but I do it anyway to stay in practice.” Welcome to a practice session.
Being at home means few think I’m working a real job. Because I don’t jump into my car and drive to
an office as soon as I’ve got the kid on the bus, I’m not perceived as really
engaged in a meaningful endeavor. I’m at
home and therefore at liberty to chat on the phone, goof off on Facebook, or
shmooze at the dining room table over coffee.
At least, that’s what everyone thinks.
Here’s the scoop: I am
working. I am working very hard. I spend five days a week fielding issues with
book distributors, answering fan mail, marketing and promoting, and ... *gasp*
... even writing the books that pay my mortgage. I’ve got deadlines just like many other
people who commute to their workplaces. I’ve
been known to put in a 12-hour day to get everything done. Add to that fact that I juggle two writing careers
as two different authors, try to keep a path or two clear to move about in my
house without tripping and breaking my neck, and play the part of Mommy to a
busy seven-year-old.
Yes, I am working.
Yet I have to contend with those who think dropping by and interrupting
is no big deal. “Oh hi! I was in the neighborhood. Let me tell you all about the latest.” Or the phone ringing. “Hey, I know you’re writing, but I just had
to talk to you about the show I watched on TV.
Did you see what happened on Dancing With the Stars last night?”
Sigh. No matter how many times I
tell people I can’t be interrupted, they interrupt anyway.
Imagine this: I’m writing really
well, completely in the zone where I can see the scenario I’m working on in all
its vivid detail. I’ve got the perfect
word, phrase, or sentence that is going to portray this scene to the
reader...it’s a thing of beauty. Nothing
else will ever fit what I’m trying to get across as wondrously as this
word/phrase/sentence. Fingers are poised
over the keyboard, ready to tap that extraordinary passage ... and then...
“Hi! Sorry I’m interrupting, but
this will only take a second.”
The word/phrase/sentence that I’d held so tenderly in my mind, ready to
birth onto the page, as ephemeral as a midnight dream – it disappears. I’m jolted out of my little world, never to
find that tiny mote of perfection ever again.
At those times I feel like Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining’ when Shelley
Duval interrupts his writing and he completely loses it on her. Oh yeah, it’s a good thing I don’t own an axe
at that moment. I could commit mayhem in
finely arcing splashes of gore. I really
could.
To those of you who have an artist, writer, musician, or other creative
beast in your life ... or even someone who simply works in the home ... have a
heart. Yes, we love you. We love you with all our beings. You are more important to us than anything,
truly you are. Whatever it is you’re
dying to share is important to us too. But
please understand we really are working.
I’m not showing up at your job in the middle of the day, interrupting
your work. All I ask is the same respect
in return.
Please, for all our sakes and to keep blood off my carpet, do not
disturb the writer when she’s working.
Don’t make her go all Jack Torrence on your ass, busting down the door
and yelling “Heeeere’s Johnny!”
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