Sunder: Day 56--Prologue

With the arrival of our new Director of Software Development I have been ejected from my dark, quiet writing place. I tried writing at my cube, but I don’t always produce the best material there. It’s too bright. It’s too close to co-workers who may be labouring late into the evening and the temptation to talk to them is always too great for me to resist. I need solitude to write. I need silence or at the very least muffled ambient noise. Earplugs provided the silence, but wearing them for more than an hour puts pressure on the inside of my ear canal which turns into yet another kind of distraction. The writer spirit within me is a fussy old codger.

So now I find myself still at the office, but not in the formerly empty Sales Office that I enjoyed. I am comfortably set up in the Friedman Boardroom. This used to be an office. Actually I believe it used to be Chad’s old office. The wide, solid wood desk is gone now and so are the prints he hung on the walls. In their place are a small boardroom table and a wall-mounted LCD monitor.

In its favour are comfortable leather chairs. It’s in the Finance and Admin section of the corporate office, clear on the opposite side of the building from R&D and late-labouring co-workers. I am set up with my desk lamp, my coffee and a wide window in front of me with the steel venetian blinds pulled down but angled so I can still see the view of Hunt Club Road. The only noise that I have to contend with is the ambient sound of evening traffic as it passes by. No one else uses this space after hours or on the weekends so that means I don’t have to re-arrange monitors and keyboards to suit my fussy habits. For all intents and purposes, during off-hours, this space is mine.

It feels kind of good. I think I like this space a little more than the Sales Office (and I really liked that space). I can hone my craft here. I can cultivate patience (as E. B. White would say).

LATER--I don't know if the change of venue had anything to do with it, but I got a lot done tonight.  It's nearly twelve thirty and I managed to get 1205 words down on the page for Sunder's prologue, a huge improvement over what I got done last night (which was next to nothing if you don't count the "ice breaker" I jammed down).  Pretty tired right now, but excited, too.  Time to pack up and head home.