Opportunity Knocks

From around mid-January of this year I opted to reduce my hours to four days a week. Quite a gamble. It’s not like booksellers earn a handsome wage. Shaving one fifth off your wages is... sobering. Squeezing in writing around shift work was proving near impossible. Squeezing in life around shift work is pretty difficult. Regular meal times go out the window, the diet descends into murky realms that skate the abyss of McBadness. You eat on the run, vegetables are things that happen to other people, coffee isn’t so much a pleasure as a necessity. Seeing friends becomes challenging. Planning life around the all-powerful rota becomes all-consuming. And the writing. Well, maybe tomorrow, or the day after that.

That’s why you have to be an opportunist.

Be able to write when ever you can, where ever you can. I’ve got better at this but I still don’t feel it’s enough. I’ve written in coffee bars (a favourite), or the bus (least favourite), in pubs (loud), in the staff room at work, on the train (the favourite) and at home. I’ve written alone and I’ve written alongside friends (including Tom Pollock, who gives great feedback). My most flat out productive periods are when I’m cat-sitting in Penge. Perhaps the week long deadline and lack of distractions are contributing factors. I may have to move to Penge just to dis-prove my tenuous theory it sits on some sort of keyboard-based ley line.