If you are able to, please work from home. If you have never worked regularly from home, I “telecommuted” for the last twelve years at my last job and here are some tips for success I suggest you review.
Have a special work “place” in your home … another room like a spare bedroom is ideal. In my job, we HAD to do this and the door had to be lockable (gov security stuff)
Keep to a daily/hourly routine. (although my job was more like “hey, you can work 24 hours a day”). You need to police yourself.
My company had a special work-related instant messaging that worked great for co-worker interaction. If you have that, great. You might want to use FB messaging if nothing else.
I had a dedicated ip serviced phone/phone line, but you may not have that option. Skype might be a work option. It does not have to be video skype. It’s another good option for messaging too.
Learn to work from PDF copies because you’ll soon find yourself buried in pieces of paper if you print (and you’ll need extra supplies). In my last years at work, I had printer cartridges go dry because I printed so rarely.
I saw on TV someone suggested get dressed like a normal workday. I’d say that is optional unless you video conference.
Some people may want to do video conferencing, but I’d say voice conferencing is good enough. BUT, research screen sharing apps if you ever need to have someone look over your shoulder.
Most important: keep liquid beverages at least an arm’s length from your laptop/keyboard. Lean away from your workstation to sip. Hardware support is much farther away when you work at home.
Keep the TV off.
Do your work.
Get into a routine.
It all seems like common sense but for me, it required a learning curve. It’s a great and convenient option, so don’t squander the apparent freedom of it. Remind others at home that you are, in fact, at WORK.
It is hard to do at first but if you stick with it, it becomes normal.
If we were having coffee today, I’d be beaming. “It’s on me,” I’d say. “Go ahead and have a pastry too.”
If we were having coffee today, I’d have to admit the error of my ways. Yes, that’s right. I’ve been wrong for quite a while. I’ve only been fooling myself thinking my second and third novels could function as effective stand-alone reads. Oh, readers can follow them just fine I suppose but more and more I have come to realize, to fully enjoy them, one needs to read them in order. What I have created here, ladies and gentlemen is a trilogy.
What’s so lucky about Lucky Strike? Considering the theme of vengeance and the ensuing deep-seated criminal conspiracy, not so much. In fact, we see several crimes in the pages, including threats, kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, torture, and murder. What’s it all about? Well, that is the big question, isn’t it?
As we progress into fall I always fall back to the basic plot of my debut novel, The Fever. It starts at just about this time of year. Sam Milton, the main character, is hiking out of the desert on a cool October night, lamenting his failure to find his elusive goal.
If we were having coffee today I’d be telling you about last night’s reading.
If we were having coffee today I’d have a couple of things to share.
My new book, Lucky Strike, has always been slated for a publish date of October 1. A local author event late in September has complicated those plans a little. The Kindle edition is still slated for an October 1 release, but my publisher has graciously allowed an early release of the paperback version.
Scratching the Surface 