Tag: office

Year End: Moving Office

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

I suppose I could start this entry with an exasperated how the hells is it December already??, but really, I’m not that surprised at all. It’s been a busy year all around.

One of the biggest changes of 2025 was our moving to our new home, and one we own rather than rent at that. To be honest, I’m still trying to wrap my head around that. There’s a sense of permanence going on that I am very much not used to. Aside from my family’s house, every other place I’ve lived in has always been a rented apartment, so it’s taking time for me to accept that we’re allowed to make changes (or not!) if we so choose. I am also greatly amused at how many quarters I can amass over time now that we own our own washer/dryer unit, and how much room our shared office has now that most of my old writings and whatnot are down in our garage storage.

Speaking of a shared office, I’m glad I chose to take the ‘clean slate’ option when we moved everything in, because Spare Oom was getting a mite bit crowded with our mutual book collection and all my writing-related stuff. I was also feeling a bit boxed in by the strict schedule I’d placed upon myself. While the whiteboard calendar had long been a source of inspiration to keep me going, it had also turned into a bit of a chain around my ankle. It all had started feeling like an assignment rather than a a craft that I enjoyed.

So when I got everything plugged in and turned on at the New Digs, I gave myself a fresh start. I didn’t do any blogging, journaling or daily words for a couple of months, instead focusing on the most important projects, Theadia and the Trilogy Remaster. I took my time deciding what decorations to put up, as I didn’t want another collage of stickers and silly things poking holes in the pristine white walls. I didn’t even update my notebook calendar with any notes like I normally would. I merely wanted to reset my priorities and find a bit of clarity.

And now here we are months later. The remastered A Division of Souls is out in the wild, Theadia is back up and running, and I’m even back to blogging and daily words. I only journal occasionally these days, as I don’t feel the need to make it a daily thing at the moment. I feel less disconnected from the world as well, considering the office’s windows overlook the street we live on, and I’m not as far away from A as I used to be. And of course we have both cat trees in here, so Juli and Cali are frequent visitors and distractors!

More to come…

A fresh start

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

It’s been a couple of days since we settled into our new place, with nearly everything unpacked and put away. We’re still organizing as we go of course, but for the most part it’s all where it needs to be or at least close by. And both cats have been monitoring and supervising every step of the way.

I made the decision early on to keep a lot of my stuff down in the garage storage until further notice so as to not crowd everything in our now-shared office. This means that most of my notebooks, early writings, journals, and so on are down there, still easy to access but locked away. It occurred to me that I don’t need them immediately. Not to worry, they’re in closed plastic bins and out of harm’s way. [And besides, my juvenilia has definitely seen worse storage times.] Whenever I finally get around to restarting the scanning project, they’ll be ready to go.

In the midst of all this, I realized that this gives me the opportunity for a completely fresh start here in the new office. When you’re living in the same place for over fifteen years, it’s kind of hard to go cold turkey on some of the habits and processes you’ve become so used to. So instead of trying to find where I left off with all of that journaling and longhand writing and so on, I’m just going to start a new moleskine notebook. Spend a little more time just enjoying listening to music instead of obsessively collecting and organizing it. Pick up those art supplies and have some fun during downtime. And most importantly, instead of finding a place to put up my whiteboard schedule (and not wanting to damage these pristine walls on day one), I’m just going to try my hand at working without one.

This doesn’t mean abandoning my two current projects, of course. I’ll need to pick up where I left off with the Trilogy Remaster, and I still need to finish off Theadia and start in on its revision and eventual publication. Those two have been at the front of my mind ever since we started this whole moving house chaos two months ago. Give me a day or so and I should be back on track!

Do I know where I’m going to go from here? Not entirely…but I’d like to think that’s a good thing. I’ve given myself a clean slate as it were, and I definitely need to allow myself to experience those more often.

On keeping the rest of the office clean

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

I know it sounds silly, but I’ve been waiting for today for at least a month now. Why is that? Well, it’s because I was finally able to get an appointment to donate six rather heavy boxes of books that have been piled up here in Spare Oom since before the pandemic started.

Now, normally I wouldn’t worry about that sort of thing, as in the past I’d have just found time on the weekend to drive the donations over to the drop-off site in Fort Mason. However, the pandemic put the kibosh on that — not only did they stop donations there, they closed down the shop/café. I now have to drive over to Potrero Hill — doable, in a kind of haphazard way that takes a bit of time — to the main donation center. And in order to do that, I’d had to sign up for an appointment…and they were full up at least a month or so ahead when I tried in early October.

Still, I’m happy that I’m able to drop these things off and open up some floor space again. I mean, they weren’t taking up a large amount of space, just the area in front of the closet doors and next to the loveseat. And I’m sure that within the next six months, we’ll have yet another treasure trove of books to donate.

It took ages for me to get rid of the Goodwill donation pile (same reason, all the donation spots were closed due to the pandemic) but thankfully I took care of that last week. The only thing there right now is some boxes and shopping bags that I’m holding onto temporarily for holiday mailing purposes. It’s no longer completely blocking the bottom of one of the book shelves.

Well, you know me…I like keeping things relatively tidy. Not spotless, mind you, just clean enough that I know where everything is, and I don’t have to waste time excavating to find it. (Yes, I am a KonMari fan.) I think part of this comes from having far too much stuff during my Belfry days and getting withering glances from family when I had to pull twelve things out to get at something behind it. And it’s also from my somewhat obsessive way of keeping my music library in order.

This system works for the most part…every other month or so I’ll adjust the systems as need be, or if I feel the urge to shake things up a bit, but right now I’m good with how Spare Oom works. Maximum floor space, ease of accessibility, and a clear seat for relaxing. Keeps a writer happy!