What do you spend most of your time doing every day (when you are not writing)?
Tick. Tick. Tick. The second hand of the clock on the wall drummed a steady beat in Jasmine’s head. Keyboards made echoing clacks as her coworkers typed away at their memos and reports. A phone rang in another part of the office. Someone walked past her desk with a steaming cup of fresh coffee. She could really use a cup.
Her fingers hovered above her own keyboard, the cursor flashing impatiently on the screen, awaiting her input. She frowned at the stack of documents in her “To Be Transcribed” pile. It was deep, but hardly overwhelming. She could easily finish it by the end of the day.
She let her gaze drift to the pale popcorn ceiling. Her mind often started to wander after a couple hours of mindless typing. It wasn’t that she hated her job; there were plenty of enjoyable aspects. She particularly liked the literature assignments. Poems and journals and the like.
Her firm specialized in archiving historical data to preserve it electronically. A lot of the time that meant ancient government reports on census or weather logs or news clippings on significant events. But sometimes it meant transcribing some eccentric writer’s old handwritten notes or journals. Sometimes even unpublished works. Those were Jasmine’s favorite.
It was easy to get lost in the words. It was almost not like work at all, like she was just spending her day reading a fantastic novel or series of poems. It fueled her interest in writing for herself. If she could just get through the day and still remain inspired once she got home.
That was the hardest part. After spending her days in someone else’s head, hours upon hours in a cheap computer chair staring at a blinding screen, it was hard to settle in to write once she was home. She imagined such incredible things while she worked. She wanted to capture them and share them with the world.
She sighed as she returned to her agricultural report. One day. She would get there one day.
Notes: Yep. I’m definitely projecting a bit here. Spend 8 hours a day at a desk staring at a computer screen working with spreadsheets of data or writing up processes and your brain will go a bit numb too. It’s really not all that bad though. My current position is a lot more hands on, when there’s work to do. And my first month has been pretty quiet. I keep hearing rumors that we’re going to be picking up in a few weeks, but until that happens I will continue to stare off into the distance and think about writing.
I daydream a lot. I know I am far from the only one. But I spend most of my time not writing thinking about writing (which, some argue, is actually still writing). And sitting. So long. I really need to get up and move more often. It’ll be easier when I have work on the shop floor to cover, but for now I’m enduring a self-imposed exile to our dungeon office. It’s been way too hot to go for my usual post-lunch walk around the campus, but once the heat breaks I will make that a priority again.
I liked the idea of an office worker daydreaming about battling office life in good ol’ RPG fashion. Literally slaying bosses and defeating obnoxious coworkers and avoiding the dreaded “microwaved fish lunch” in the breakroom. Never quite got that far, but that was where I started anyway.
We’re officially halfway through the week! Only two days left! Let’s push through. Keep writing, keep daydreaming, keep the spirit alive. No not that one, that spirit cannot be freed. The other one. You know the one. Good? Good. I will see you tomorrow then! Have a great night/Thursday!
Closet Full of Notebooks 