A mind of one's own

[nancylebov]

BitchPhd writes about the importance of uninterrupted time for thinking and relaxation.

Both of these things are really important parts of the whole "room of one's own" construct. It's not only the physical space, but the mental and temporal space, one craves. Not just freedom from interruptions, but freedom from the threat of interruptions, the possibility of distraction. So, for instance, even if Mr. B. is in charge of Pseudonymous Kid, hearing them argue over whether or not it's time for a bath is still a distraction. Or even, big picture, the fact of marriage and children at all: having a running tally in your head over whether you're out of milk and yogurt, whether your husband's been watching the kid for two hours or three and is it time for me to step in and give him a break yet, wondering if your partner remembered to call the bank or not. It's amazing, when you get a break from all that, to realize how much of a burden it is to carry around all the time, how much it imposes on your ability to think and write.

I recommend the comments, too.

I can't figure out how to do a permalink, so here's the next best thing--that article was posted on June 28, 2005.

Even though I have infinitely more slack about that sort of thing than most people, I'm still dealing with some of the issues.

Comments

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

All of those things she is describing are the minutiae of life. So what? We have lives, relationships, obligations, stomachs -- they must be attended to at least in some minimal way. But having lives is what makes us able to write in the first place.

I've been unemployed a lot, and underemployed a lot, and I am more productive during those times. So some down time is good. Yes. But. It's pretty much incumbent on the writer to create and recognize the time to be devoted to writing. You can't stop being a living human being who has connections and concerns -- nor should you.

The room I work in is the pass through from the kitchen to my bedroom. It is the room where we store most of our books. For most of the time I've had a computer to work on I've shared it with up to five people. And yet, I'd say that the real barriers to productivity have been of my own making.

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

How to do Blogger permalinks:

Go to the bottom of the post, where there's a line like this:

# posted by bitchphd : 12:06 PM Comments (55) | Trackback (0)

There are three hyperlinks in this line: in reverse order, the Trackback link, the Comments link, and the cross-hatch at the beginning of the line. The hyperlink attached to the # leads to a window containing only the one post.

Long way: Open that window and copy the hyperlink from your browser's URL window.

Short way: right-click (Wintel) or control-click (Mac) the # link and select "Copy link location."

You can then paste it into ... wherever, like this:

http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/2005/06/room-of-ones-own.html

Bonus points: if you're exposing the URL (as opposed to a href'fing it), go to http://www.tinyurl.com and make a tiny url. The bitchphd room of one's own post now has this tinyurl:

http://tinyurl.com/84gea

Ta!

[kressel.livejournal.com]

My motherhood and my writing used to be in direct conflict. Then I read Becoming A Writer by Dorothea Brande and I learned more about achieving balance in my approach to writing. It's true that I'm not quite as productive as I used to be, but I'm at peace with it.

[cheshyre]

Don't ask me why, but the # symbol at the end of posts is frequently used for blog post permalinks