Recently I moved from one house to another. It wasn’t the first time. As I ran the mouse maze of trying to get my office set up so I could return to the business of writing, I was struck by challenges invariably faced by writers who relocate:
- The wall with the grounded outlets needed to set up your surge suppressor will not be the one where you want to place your equipment.
- The cord on the surge suppressor will be too short to plug in equipment in the new location.
- The wall with the grounded outlets also will not be the one where your internet cable connection enters. (If you happen to think spiders are cute, you’ll love the multi-directional tangle of cords which results.)
- Any outlet needed for a task lamp, whether on the desk or hanging, will either be inaccessible behind heavy furniture or already in use by other, more important, equipment.
- Within 48 hours of getting equipment back up and running, the printer will run out of toner, you’ll discover that model is now dubbed obsolete, and you’ll have to order online — and wait for delivery.
Lucky Dashiell Hammett and Lillian Hellman! They could set up manual typewriters anywhere that struck their fancy, spill all the booze they wanted onto the keys, and keep on writing.
M. Ruth Myers writes the Maggie Sullivan mysteries featuring a woman P.I. in the 1930s/40s.
