this is how we do; 10 things writers do in order to...write.

“A writer never has a vacation. For a writer life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.”

- Eugene Ionesco

So, I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately. Working by day, blogging by night, and scribbling down just about any thought that comes into my head (or obsessively Facebooking and emailing) in between. Besides the weekend in college when I read the entire first volume of Proust and only stopped to pop another caffeine pill, and the week before the dissertation deadline when I stupidly, stupidly, stupidly! decided to rewrite the entire last chapter despite the fact that it had been done for months (and only stopped to pop another…no, never mind), this has perhaps been the most productive week of my life. And I can proudly say there were no pills involved. Turns out, while writing can be “a dog’s life” as Flaubert said, it can also be pretty great. You get to work from home, which in my case is a beautiful one; you get to set your own schedule, which in my case is non-stop save for the 5 minutes I spend on Jeremy Clarskon; you get to wear whatever you want (which as you’ll soon learn, varies); and most importantly, and you probably know what’s coming next, you get to smoke. Correction, you get to chain-smoke. What? I’m a writer. It’s how we do. Dawg. (I hope my landlord doesn’t read my blog—its fiction, all fiction, dawg). But between the words and the cigarettes, I also got to thinking about other things we writers do. For while it may all seem cool and breezy to your average office slave, it still is, nonetheless work. And precisely in order not to be cool and breezy about it, there are certain things you need to do. To force, encourage or inspire yourself to work. So, as I’m totally riding the list train lately, here are ten things writers, or this writer does, in order to make it happen.

1. Dress like you’re going sailing or yachting. You know, lots of navy, lots of white, TODS moccasins, maybe a little scarf if you really want to go all out. This way, every time you get up to go and pee and you see yourself in the mirror…you’ll feel like you’ve just stepped off your yacht and are about to step back on. Works like a charm, this one. There is, after all, some truth to the whole fake-it-til-you-make-it business.

2. Drape your chair with some silk or velvet so that it looks more like a throne than a work chair. Ick, really don’t like the w word. Actually…maybe mine looks more like a gypsy’s or fortune teller’s chair right now, but whatever, as long as it doesn’t look like a writer’s one, it’s all good.

3. Turn off your phone. Boy do I love doing this. Sorry mom, I’m fine, I’m alive, I’m well. Nobody killed me on the way to the supermarket, no lamppost fell on my head, I’m not lying in a ditch. I’m just writing. And yes, I brushed my teeth. Stop worrying.

4. Listen to opera. Preferably in a language that you don’t understand. That way you wont stop working to get up and sing along every once in a while. Damn you MJ. No, no, no “pretty lady with the high heels on”…sit, work, write! “You give me fever like I never ever known!” What? My iPod was on shuffle!

5. Don’t put the iPod on shuffle. “Sex bomb sex bomb you’re my sex bomb! You can give it to me when you…” in fact, remove Tom Jones and co. from your music collection altogether. Awww, but my neighbors will be disappointed! The ones across the way who see the show that is, The Sex Bomb Sailor show! The ones above and below me will probably be grateful. (Oh those “above and below” innuendos are so inviting…but I’ll stay away from them for now. That’s the other thing writers do—we focus.)

6. Empty the ashtray every once in a while. No, not much inspiring or thought provoking in this one, but it still needs to be done.

7. Which reminds me. Open the windows. Call it whatever you want but it’s supposed to resemble an office not a hotbox.

8. Don’t put Jeremy Clarkson’s Sunday Times Column on your desk as incentive to hurry up with your work so you can get to your pleasure. The face he has in that picture just says, “I’m bored, and you should just give up, you’re never, ever, going to be me.” (Gee, talk about a picture saying a thousand words).

9. If you’re going to drink while you write (and I try, for the most part, not to) don’t leave the bottle on your desk. Put it somewhere far away in the fridge, so that in the time it takes to walk over you might think twice before refilling that glass. If you don’t, you’ll just refill and empty your glass to the rhythm of the sentences…and after a while, the shentences, let me tell you, the shentences, are bound to lose their…rithim. Hic!

10. Whatever you do, don’t consult the Urban Dictionary as a reference. You’ll come across hundreds of interesting new words…or old words with new meanings…and you’ll find yourself reading through the 919 synonyms for “pussy” instead of writing 919 words of your own. “Dick mitten.” It was a tough call, but that has to be my new favorite. Incidentally, it’s also called a “pearl hotel.” Fancy that!

go get em' frankie! - on the perks of living alone.

"I grew up with six brothers. That's how I learned to dance -

waiting for the bathroom."

- Bob Hope

You know, Frankie was on to something with the whole “My Way” thing. I mean sharing is caring and all…but “my friend, I’ll say it clear, I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain…” and my case, is that I’m done with that. Done. With. That. I have, as I’m sure most people have, lived with parents, grandparents, other family members, total strangers, boyfriends, friends, flatmates, flatmates who weren’t friends, flatmates who became friends, flatmates who became more than friends, flatmates who became more than friends and then became less than friends, way way less than…you get the drift. And for the first time in a long time, I finally live alone. And I absolutely love it. Sure, there’ll probably come a day when I slip and fall in the shower and will need someone to help me up, a lightbulb that will need changing, or a day when I’ll just get plain lonely…but we’ll cross, (or jump off) that bridge when we get to it. And by “we” I of course mean “me.” Right now however, all “we” can see are the perks. And boy are there many…

1. You can live on chicken caesar salad everyday…and you, in true Caesarian fashion, get to decide when you’re bored of that. And, truth be told, I just don’t think that’s ever going to happen.

2. You never have to worry about having the last one of anything. “No you have it.” “No you have it.” None o’ that.

3. You can open things with things you’re not supposed to open things with. Like butter knives and teeth. And nobody’s going to tell you not to.

4. And after you’ve opened the jar with a butter knife, you can stand over the kitchen counter and eat all the stuffed green olives in it. And be completely satisfied with that as dinner.

5. Or be completely satisfied with just cigarettes. Yum! (No, mom, I don’t really just have cigarettes for dinner, stop worrying).

6. You can smoke in bed. (I don’t do that either, but I like knowing that I can). And I’m sure that if and when that “right” moment comes along…I most certainly will thank you very much.

7. And speaking of “right” moments, and wrong moments…you can bend over to put dishes in the dishwasher, or to do your hand-washing in the bathtub without worryi—no, never mind, scratch that. TMI.

8. Nobody is going to “accidentally” wash your cashmere, or silk, or wool, or lingerie with the linens on 90, in the name of “doing you a favor.” You what, you didn’t know? No sweetheart, you didn’t think.

9. You can laugh out loud over something you read on your computer and you don’t have to explain to anyone what it is you’re laughing over. (Like your own jokes for instance. It totally works to laugh at your own jokes when you're on your own. What's more, you kind of have to. Otherwise nobody will).

10. In fact you can spend long hours in front of your computer facebooking, skypeing, googling, wikipediaing, or you-tubing, without being questioned on whether that is a legitimate use of your time or intelligence. Yesterday I spent a good hour reading up on St. Pancras and the pancreas. This is because last week, when I went to King’s Cross, the tube conductor said over the loudspeaker, “this is King’s Cross St. Pancreas.” Not PANCRAS, PANCREAS. I swear that’s what he said. And this got me thinking, are the two related? So I googled it. One’s a saint (or train station named after a saint, if you will), the other, a gland. Ipso facto, not related. That’s what I thought. Also, I randomly came across a video of a one-legged salsa dancer. Again, totally unrelated. But totally awesome. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnsz8Uc3enE&feature=related

(PS. I love how the last word in that link is…RELATED! Maybe it all is, somehow…Google?)

11. The toothpaste always has the cap on. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not exactly the saint-of-all-things-closed—I leave drawers and stuff open all the time—but the toothpaste? Toothpaste is just one of those things you have to close.

12. Everything is Always. Exactly. Where. You. Left. It.

13. You can file, buff, and paint your nails whenever and wherever without worrying about the sound or the smell bothering anyone. And without getting a lecture on the coffee table varnish. Sorry dad. I promise. I won’t do it again. (But my nails are gorgeous, thanks for asking!)

14. Nobody’s going to judge you for buying the expensive toilet paper. (There should probably be another sorry dad somewhere in here). The thick fluffy one with snowflakes on it and adorable puppies on the label. Love that stuff. Correction, my tush loves that stuff. Doesn’t yours?

15. When you forget to get the (fancy) toilet paper out of the shopping bag you’ve just brought home…you can hop out of the bathroom with your knickers round your ankles and get it. Oh come on, we’ve all done it. (And if you haven’t, then you should probably try the fancy toilet paper. That stuff is worth the hop).

16. You can pee with the bathroom door open. I don’t know why I like this so much, but I do. It feels very Louis XIV…l’âge d’or, or something. Incidentally, in his time, he was one of the few (or only) people who actually had their own bathroom. But knowing him, he probably just ordered everyone to piss off (pun intended!) and left the door open anyhow. (And just to give credit where its due, I’m sure it was so much more than a door—the entrance to Louis’s bathroom quite possibly closely resembled the gates of heaven).

17. The toilet seat is always down. Down and clean. I just don’t get how they manage to spray it everywhere in the first place. You have a pointer for crying out loud! What do I got? (Not you, Louis, I’m sure you had control down, even in that department).

18. It seems a lot of the perks of living alone revolve around peeing. What can I say? I drink a lot of water. And a lot of coffee. A lot a lot.

19. Which reminds me—no one is going to count the number of cups of coffee you drink. Ahhh…encore garçon encore! Wait, there’s no garçon. But that would be nice, no? A little butler boy? Do a little dance, make a little love…roast a little chicken?

20. Ok. Focus. I’m focusing. Back to quantities—nobody is going to question whether you really need all those pairs of shoes. Need? When did that become the categorical imperative? You don’t really need that attitude, but you have it don’t you? And boy do you wear it well. (See now my butler boy, he wouldn’t have an attitude…)

21. As for “wearing:” you can take as long as you want to get ready…and actually, when there’s no one else around…turns out it doesn’t take that long at all.

22. I’d like to say you can walk around naked all the time…but I have big windows and a lot of them, so, that doesn’t really work. Yep. I learned that the hard way. Tweet Twee-eet. I suppose I could crawl around naked though. I should give that a go…

23. But speaking of crawling, this is a big one: You never ever have to tip-toe. I did ballet for almost ten years so I think its fair to say that I’m done with the whole tip-toe business.

24. Which sets us up for the coup de grace. You can be sure that when your Sunday Times is delivered early on Sunday morning you won’t wake anyone up when you pop down to get it…

25.…And most, most, most importantly: nobody will touch it before you. Jeremy Clarkson and I…All alone………

Now, tell me, what could be better than that.