J.G. Chayko

There are workman tromping around in my kitchen; every few minutes the buzz of a saw, the zap of a nail gun, hammering and yammering. The day before all this chaos, I prepared for this new and temporary infestation in my life. I gathered my drafts for editing, thinking I could hide out in my study doing my work while they did theirs…this was an absolute test of patience and concentration amidst chaos. How much work could I actually get done?

I did pretty well. After the first three hours, when I finally quelled my curiosity, stopped listening to their every word and poking my head around the corner to view their most recent progress, I was able to let the words take over and allow my fingers to get into a natural rhythm on my keyboard. Eventually, the whine of the saw and their frustrated voices faded into the realm of white noise.

Writers get used to distractions permitting identifiable noise to fade into extinction. We train ourselves to ignore the sounds of the world around us, turning off phones, voices, television, sirens and traffic – we learn to tune into the vibrations of our words. When something new and unexpected intrudes into our normal routine, we have to throw a blanket over it and get on with our work.

So far, I have managed to bang out this post, edit another article and jot down notes on a new project – not too shabby when power saws are screaming one room away from me…just goes to show that when writers really have a story to tell, they’ll find a way…now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go see what that loud bang was in my kitchen…