I have had 9-5 desk jobs only sporadically in my life. I successfully avoided that fate by hiding out in grad school and in academia most of the time. I certainly never did a job like Steve, which involves being glued to a chair for nine hours per day. Darling husband is a martyr to our mortgage.
Working from home has its advantages, but it also involves a great deal of discipline and internal rules. Deviate from those rules, and it's a slippery slope down to crazy-land.
One of my rules is that the paying gig comes first. I write best in the morning, so now that Ian's gray van has picked him for school and Steve has driven Jonah to school for extra math help, I really should be working on the freelance article.
I dashed off 500 words yesterday about the impending cuts in education. The article really demanded some fucking pie charts, but I sent it off without the fucking pie charts and a note to the editor to tell me if wanted some fucking pie charts. He wants the fucking pie charts. I spent an hour searching the web for some pre-existing pie charts and couldn't find anything that was accurate, so now I have to put some numbers in Excel and make my own fucking pie charts.
I'm stalling here. And violating one of the rules, which is the paying gig comes before blogging.
Other rules that have developed over time include no reading novels during the day, no TV watching, no video games other than really dumb ones that only take up five minutes here and there. All writing and Internet surfing must end up noon. The three hours before the kids come home are for the gym and chores. Once a week, I must have lunch with my sister or friends, because you need interaction with real people, so you don't end up in crazy-land.
I've been doing a lot of rule breaking lately. Yesterday, I read Angela's Ashes all day. I haven't been to the gym in several days.
I need to get myself together here and make the fucking pie-charts.