The Time and Place to Write

I carry a mobile office with me almost wherever I go.

I have been working remotely since 2012. I have two mobile setups, one for work and one for my personal, creative work.

I am currently at a place where I feel like my professional and personal work are in balance.

I write this lying in bed because I took a road trip to Chicago Sunday, and my body is still a little peeved about all of the driving and then sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair for two hours.

I have worked from home in bed while recovering from surgery. I have worked from hotels in bed because I wore myself out.

I've worked at a desk in a room over a pub in Glastonbury. From a bed in a converted stable next to an Irish castle. At a desk in a cabin in the woods on a remote island off the coast of British Columbia.

Finding the time to work for my dayjob is easy; the times I need to be working are loosely dictated by my workplace. Finding the time for my personal writing often requires schedule Tetris.

I often a running list of bite-sized, easy tasks I can do to forward my writing for times when I'm tired, hurting, or having a hard time concentrating. (I also have a running list of bigger lifts for the times I'm ready to take on the world.) Tonight, these tasks were reading contest entries for a contest I'm participating in and writing this post. For tonight, this is enough.

I think it's important to remember that, no matter what sized project I'm working on, it's made of smaller parts. And, if I chip away at those smaller parts, the whole will eventually fall into place.

Success is often preparation plus a little luck. So I do what I can to work on what's in front of me, knowing that making it as easy as possible to chip away at projects a bit at a time is always slowly moving me towards my goals.