When the fine folks at Turnstone Press asked me to take a look at the “my studio” feature I had written for No Escape from Greatness and see if anything had changed, I figured I would need to make a change or two. That’s how change gets you – it creeps up! Everything is different.
I had said “luxuriating cats preferred.” We have a dog now, as well. She likes to bark at the window. So a sleeping dog is more than preferred – it’s mandatory. The cats typically stay away from the dog, so they can do what they like. If you see them, tell them I said hello!
Even though we moved from an apartment to a house, I still don’t have a real dedicated space. For Still Me, when I got to crunch time, I fashioned a temporary dedicated space, in front of a bulletin board with pictures of golf holes and possible character faces, along with my outlines. That was in the middle of winter, when I needed to see green to re-enter the world of James Khoury and perpetual golf!
Writing Still Me also happened in an AirBnB walkup brownstone close to the future Obama presidential library in Chicago, on a Spanish vacation when I should have been at the beach, in two different cottages at Victoria Beach, and almost exclusively on a single laptop computer.
When you spend so much time with a single machine, shouldn’t you give it a name? I haven’t, but I’m taking suggestions.
The pandemic hasn’t really changed my habits, or my habitat. We have space now, which has been a privilege and a blessing. I can look out our front window as the dog-walkers go by, or sit in the sunroom and admire my wife’s green-thumbery. I can tuck myself away in the dark privacy of the basement and stare at the walls. There’s plenty to look at when I ought to be writing ;)
I guess that’s why I write more when I’m walking. I think my most true writing comes while actively meditating, in that mind-wandering state I get to most easily by going for a walk, run, or a solo round of golf. When I sit down at a keyboard, I am typing, moreso than writing. I’m dictating to myself.
One thing hasn’t changed: I still do my most clear-headed work first thing in the morning, between coffees number 1 and 2. I’ll ride a wave if I find one and write until mid-morning. Editing happens later in the day, when the critical, analytical, linear side of my brain is fully engaged.
Books by Jeffrey John Eyamie:
Turnstone Press Ltd.
