I need to find a better way to get writing done.

Friday and Saturday mornings often involve sitting in some public space under the loud drone of some unfamiliar music, spending money on food or on coffee, trying to squeeze something useful out of my head for, most of the time, the blog. And behind these blog posts, I keep telling myself I want to write something longer and deeper- but I never get past the blog posts. And if, by chance, I want to go and do something for a day when I would not be able to post a blog, I have to cover that day by having another post ready the day before (which is crucial if I want to reach the goal of posting something on every day this year). As a blogger, you are fortunate if you can stockpile a few posts. I’ve never been able to do that yet.

Too often, however, I just can’t focus to write in public spaces. The music is too loud. People chatter. Smells. Bangs and clangs. The music is too loud. Peole chatter. Bangs and clangs.

I would love to write at home, but for some reason, I have just not been able to cease that creative space yet. My dining room table is at not-quite-the-right-height for comfortable writing. The couch is a bit low, and if I put the laptop on my lap, I find myself wanting to fall asleep. The bar table in the kitchen is nice, but again, it is at an odd height, and the surrounding space is dark and bland.

And then there is the issue of the house smell.

I love having a home of my own, but I find this house is too often a haven for trapped smells.

When my neighbor’s guest next door goes in the backyard to smoke, the smoke inevitable is sucked into my house somewhere. When they fire up their wood-fueled oven, it’s the same story. The smell of burnt wood floods my living room downstairs.

And then there are the smells that are part of the house that are known. Odors from the cats’ letter boxes. The smell of a bathroom that is wet and poorly ventilated in the center of the lower level. The smell of whatever I seared in a pan for dinner the night before.

And then there is a smell that is part of the house itself that I cannot define. Pungent, overwhelming, unpleasant, this odor comes from somewhere within the walls, between the floor, as if the walls are sweating within and never change their shirt.

I would love to make the house a creative lab.

There is a closet off of one of the rooms upstairs which is a walk-in cube of a room. It is currently a storage space and the repository for cat food and cat litter, but it is generally cool and odor free within, and it is large enough to house a desk.

It’s a tempting potential office where things could get done.

And I am happy with the coffee I make.

All I know is that I would really like to spend less trying to find places to be productive, and somehow equip myself to do accomplish it at home.