Working at home: Hard as....read on

I ran across this little ditty by Olin Miller: Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators. Amen to that.

More than once today, I've thought, 'oh, you're so right!' Writing is hard---'specially when you can't concentrate because of outside noise. This particular day, like every other workday since the beginning of April, our neighborhood has been 'treated' to construction sounds, from 6:30 a.m. till, would you believe, 7 or 8 p.m. Backup beeps rip through the air continuously (or so it seems---although, at this moment, they're silent. But wait five minutes and that'll change), and heavy equipment rumbles past the house to and from the worksite half a block away. It'll all change again in October, and our typically quiet neighborhood will return to normal. By then, summer will be gone, and who knows? we may see our first snowflake soon after the trucks go away for good.

So that's the scenario I work under for now. If I were fall housecleaning, I'd block out their noise easily. But while I'm in the creative work mode, constant noises are a distraction. No doubt about it, focusing on writing projects isn't easy---but it's not impossible. After all, other work-at-home writers do it, sometimes amid a house full of little ones clamoring for attention.

Nevertheless, when we sign on for this life, we'd better expect annoyances of all kinds---including construction beeps half a block away---and work through it anyway. It beats wrestling alligators, any day!