Tag: distractions

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Where I write

It’s true, a per­son can write any­where. On the bus, at a park bench or even in the bathtub. I be­lieve each per­son writes best when they’re in a place that is per­fect for them.

Some like the back­ground buzz of a cap­puccino bar while oth­ers thrive on the clat­ter of key­board keys as they pound out story after story in a news­pa­per news­room. Personally, I prefer the quiet am­bi­ance of my home of­fice. And, as the old­est room in our 96-year old house, the room def­in­itely has ambiance.

To be­gin with, its ample size provides plenty of room for two desks, built-in and port­able book­cases, a fil­ing cab­in­et (there are more in the base­ment) and two tables to pile things on. (Despite the best of in­ten­tions, I’m a piler, not a filer.)

But it’s the transom win­dows that I love best. At 1.6 metres tall by one metre wide  (or 5 feet, 3 inches and 3 feet, one inch for the met­ric­ally chal­lenged) the nat­ur­al light provides a wel­come res­pite from the glow of the com­puter screen.

And to tell the truth, they also present ample op­por­tun­it­ies for dis­trac­tion. In the spring my eyes are drawn to a snowstorm of white plum blos­soms, a mini­ature forest of daf­fodils and a two-storey tall mock or­ange. Fall storms bring a rust col­oured car­pet of plate-sized maple leaves.

The view from my win­dow one day this May.

But it’s the wild­life that lures me out of my com­puter chair. Over the years I’ve watched deer, rac­coons, mink and squir­rels, as well as fer­al cats and rab­bits out­side my writ­ing room window.

Then there’s the caw­ing of crows and ravens and the high pitched screech of an eagle. Or the ca­co­phony of sound an army of small birds made the day a Barred owl perched in a Douglas fir. I watched as a hum­ming­bird dar­ted for­ward to stab the en­emy in the chest with a tiny beak. Despite his or her bravery, the owl did­n’t budge.

The most sur­pris­ing dis­turb­ance though, was the day my fin­gers paused on the key­board as I wondered why I thought I heard a tur­key gob­bling. We do live in a rur­al area but there aren’t any do­mest­ic fowl in the neighbourhood.

But when I peered out the win­dow there was a full grown tom, tail feath­ers fanned out in an im­press­ive dis­play, dan­cing around a flock of fe­male tur­keys on the lawn next door. I don’t know where these do­mest­ic birds es­caped from or how they went wild, but they hung around for a month or so, un­til one by one, they all disappeared.

After 22 years of en­joy­ing a great view and hav­ing a ring­side seat to nature’s drama, I’m totally ad­dicted. If we ever move, at the top of my cri­ter­ia list for a new house will be a writ­ing space with big win­dows and a view.

 

Posted on

Where I write

It’s true, a per­son can write any­where. On the bus, at a park bench or even in the bathtub. I be­lieve each per­son writes best when they’re in a place that is per­fect for them.

Some like the back­ground buzz of a cap­puccino bar while oth­ers thrive on the clat­ter of key­board keys as they pound out story after story in a news­pa­per news­room. Personally, I prefer the quiet am­bi­ance of my home of­fice. And, as the old­est room in our 96-year old house, the room def­in­itely has ambiance.

To be­gin with, its ample size provides plenty of room for two desks, built-in and port­able book­cases, a fil­ing cab­in­et (there are more in the base­ment) and two tables to pile things on. (Despite the best of in­ten­tions, I’m a piler, not a filer.)

But it’s the transom win­dows that I love best. At 1.6 metres tall by one metre wide  (or 5 feet, 3 inches and 3 feet, one inch for the met­ric­ally chal­lenged) the nat­ur­al light provides a wel­come res­pite from the glow of the com­puter screen.

And to tell the truth, they also present ample op­por­tun­it­ies for dis­trac­tion. In the spring my eyes are drawn to a snowstorm of white plum blos­soms, a mini­ature forest of daf­fodils and a two-storey tall mock or­ange. Fall storms bring a rust col­oured car­pet of plate-sized maple leaves.

The view from my win­dow one day this May.

But it’s the wild­life that lures me out of my com­puter chair. Over the years I’ve watched deer, rac­coons, mink and squir­rels, as well as fer­al cats and rab­bits out­side my writ­ing room window.

Then there’s the caw­ing of crows and ravens and the high pitched screech of an eagle. Or the ca­co­phony of sound an army of small birds made the day a Barred owl perched in a Douglas fir. I watched as a hum­ming­bird dar­ted for­ward to stab the en­emy in the chest with a tiny beak. Despite his or her bravery, the owl did­n’t budge.

The most sur­pris­ing dis­turb­ance though, was the day my fin­gers paused on the key­board as I wondered why I thought I heard a tur­key gob­bling. We do live in a rur­al area but there aren’t any do­mest­ic fowl in the neighbourhood.

But when I peered out the win­dow there was a full grown tom, tail feath­ers fanned out in an im­press­ive dis­play, dan­cing around a flock of fe­male tur­keys on the lawn next door. I don’t know where these do­mest­ic birds es­caped from or how they went wild, but they hung around for a month or so, un­til one by one, they all disappeared.

After 22 years of en­joy­ing a great view and hav­ing a ring­side seat to nature’s drama, I’m totally ad­dicted. If we ever move, at the top of my cri­ter­ia list for a new house will be a writ­ing space with big win­dows and a view.

 

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Interruptions interfere with writing

Years ago, my writ­ing desk was in a corner of the liv­ing room. I worked with people com­ing and go­ing, kids ask­ing what was for din­ner and the phone ringing.

But not anymore.

Now I can’t stand the slight­est in­tru­sion into my thought pro­cess. If someone in­ter­rupts me while I’m work­ing it seems to take forever to get back on track. And if it hap­pens more than once with­in a short peri­od of time I turn into a rav­ing man­ic de­mand­ing that every­one be quiet so I can work.

Even the sound of someone rust­ling the pages of a news­pa­per or sneez­ing in the next room is distracting.

For a long time I thought it was just me. Some quirky idio­syn­crasy that I’d have to live with. Well, it turns out I do have to live with it but so do most people over a cer­tain age.

Researchers at the University of California have dis­covered that people over 60 have more trouble switch­ing from one neur­al net­work to an­oth­er than young­er folks. That means if they’re do­ing some­thing and are briefly in­ter­rup­ted, it takes them longer to get re­ab­sorbed in their project.

In oth­er words, do­ing, hear­ing or see­ing more than one thing at a time be­comes more dif­fi­cult as you get older. I’m not 60 yet so must be go­ing through early on­set in­ter­rup­tion fatigue.

But that doesn’t make it any easier.

Most of the time my part­ner­’s pretty good about tip-toe­ing around but our her­it­age house wasn’t de­signed with any quiet areas in mind. I’ve tried noise can­cel­ling head­phones but they give me a headache.

And then there’s the phone. At times, to avoid be­ing dis­trac­ted, I simply don’t an­swer it. But now just the ringing is enough to scat­ter my thoughts like maple leaves in the wind.

So, what are my op­tions? A sound proof of­fice would be per­fect but is not prac­tic­al in this house.

An of­fice in an out­build­ing is a pos­sib­il­ity. I al­ways said I didn’t want a sep­ar­ate stu­dio but, as the years go by and my sens­it­iv­ity to in­ter­rup­tions in­creases, the thought of a totally quiet space grows more appealing.

If I don’t be­come hard of hear­ing, a shed out back just might be the answer.