Sacred Space

During this pandemic and the shut-down of many businesses, my energy-sector employer has a nifty set-up allowing us to work from home with relative ease.

We use MS Teams and Skype to collaborate and have video chats, all from the comfort of this chair in my home study.

Being connected to the rest of my colleagues means I'm one quick Teams chat "dial button" away from being interrupted.

Thing is, it now feels like I've had 100 people in my personal space.

This study has been my refuge ever since we moved here in 2016. It's home to my trusty computer, two bookshelves for all the reference material I need and, just as important, doors that close.

The possibility of being interrupted while writing is like trying to ignore a balloon gliding through a knife factory. One quick puff and it'll meet a waiting blade with a pop! that would hiccup the heart.

In the old house prior to the move, I had no dedicated writing space. No doors to close to open the mind.

When I wanted to write, I had to isolate myself by driving to a the parking lot of a nearby golf course, shifting over to the passenger's seat, and typing on a wireless keyboard connected with my iPad on the dashboard.

Then I could zone out of the real world and zone into a story.

Having a dedicated space for writing is equal in priority to having dedicated time for writing.

I still set my alarm for early in the morning - a little later now that I don't have to commute downtown after my writing session - and use these quiet hours to traipse across the landscape of imagination.

I still plop into this chair in front of this computer in this study.

I still write until it's time to log into work for the following 9 or 10 hours.

Writing in the wee hours of the workday has always been key to my success.

The trick now is keeping this space sacred.