Last night I had a nasty bought of insomnia. I think I managed to get in just under four hours of sleep. I remember reading somewhere that if you can't get at least four hours, then you're better off just not sleeping at all, so at the four hour mark I got up and took half an Excedrin PM (I considered and rejected taking a whole one at the 6 hour mark, too afraid I wouldn't have enough time to sleep it off; two hours later I was desperate enough not to care). It did the job, and it was a small enough dose that I don't feel too groggy this morning. Although I would very much like to go back to bed.
Things are continuing to be busier than usual here at work. We've started using a new file sharing program to make things accessible to the client, and after about five minutes of training on it last week they've decided to make me the go-to girl. So a lot of my time the rest of this week will be spent getting better acquainted with the program and setting up access for everybody who needs it. Whee.
Here is where I remind myself that I don't get paid to come to the office and write my novel, and that if I can't figure out how to find the peace and quiet I need to write on my own time, that's my problem, and it would be wrong to resent actual job stuff not leaving me enough time to write at the office. Still, I think this sudden burst of constant business is somewhat temporary. After another week of getting the new thing set up and catching up for all the time lost over the holidays, I expect things will settle back down to a more comfortable and writer-friendly pace. I hope.
3 comments:
Insomnia sucks. Hope you sleep better tonight. And I hope that work slows down for you. I also count on work to give me time to write, so I feel your pain.
If you care...
Vonnegut wrote Player Piano while on the clock at GE.
Dicky wrote Deliverance while on the clock at Coca-Cola.
We don't know for sure, but the day will come when we are certain that Pynchon wrote Gravity's Rainbow on the clock at Boeing.
That said...
Personally, I would never publically (in print) admit that I wrote a novel on the company clock. I signed a document that said that all my work product belongs to them. I have this nightmare that I write the most famous great american novel, and the shareholders of my company get the dividend of my royalty checks every year because I mentioned it in a blog.
Thanks, garni.
Dwight - that's actually great news. The whole point of tossing my degree to the wind and taking underachieving, semi-low responsibility jobs is to keep plenty of room in my life for writing. I keep hoping it will pay off some day, so that's pretty encouraging.
And you're probably wise not to mention writing on the job (not that YOU would EVER do that). It's not such a big secret here, and my bosses don't really mind how I spend my down time as long as I stay on top of my work and don't let the writing take priority. Which means that as far behind as I am right now I don't dare even pull up the writing file. Boo.
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