HOW TO WORK FROM HOME: Ali Whitelock's Tips

Welcome to the week, and to a new blog series here at Wakefield Press! Introducing How to Work From Home: Authors talk about how they stay productive.

Like many others, we've recently begun the transition from office work to working from home. It's a strange transition to make, and we need some help. We've interviewed a collection of our favourite authors to get their best tips, tricks and truths about working from home.
First in the series is the wonderful Ali Whitelock, whose poetry collection The Lactic Acid in the Calves of Your Despair sadly had its launch cancelled earlier in the month. Not one to be deterred by such trivial things as a cancelled event, Ali has released her launch speech on YouTube – click here to see Ali (and her cat) in all their glory. Read on for Ali's full interview.

Is writing your full-time job, or do you have another job to keep you busy? If you have more than one job, what’s the split between that job and writing?

For many years I’d wanted to devote myself to writing full-time. Writing is what I love – sometimes more than anything. My first book, a memoir, Poking Seaweed With A Stick & Running Away From The Smell came out in 2008 (just as the GFC hit as it happens, and look at us now!) I wrote the memoir while I was working full-time in a cafe. Hospitality work was perfect for me – I kept unusual hours. I had different days off to everyone else I knew, including my husband. I’d write in the mornings before heading off to my afternoon shift. Or I’d start work early in the morning and have the rest of the day to write.

It seemed easy. And then, you know, life trundled along, debt got bigger, two jobs were required, the writing suffered.

I continued to ‘write’ (i.e.: scribble in margins of things I’d previously written). But because I wasn’t writing every day, because I hadn’t manage to make it my habit again, it got harder and harder to get back into it. But the yearning never left me. And then on a brief visit back to Scotland to visit my parents about 5 years ago, my father died unexpectedly. I was with him when he died. And for every beat in the metronome of his slowing song, I counted his breaths in and out until eventually his last breath was exhaled and another just didn’t go in. And that was it. That was his life. Over. As I stepped out of the hospital that day into the abnormally bright Scottish sun I vowed I would now live my life differently. That I would not die wondering ‘what if?’. So Thomas and I made some big life sacrifices, left Sydney and moved to the south coast where we could survive on one salary (his) while I set about writing the books I hoped were in me. So I have been writing for four years full-time. In that time I’ve written and published two more books, and my heart crumples like a coke can (2018) and this latest, the lactic acid in the calves of your despair.

How do you usually structure a writing day?

So I worked my notice at my paying job. On the very next day when I was now officially unemployed and BRINGING IN NO MONEY, I woke early, took a shower, dressed and ran to my desk out of absolute fear. What if I’ve given up a decent salary and it turns out I can’t write a word? What if I really am a complete loser with nothing to say? Who do I think I am? What do you think you’re doing? Despite all of this fear and doubt, I took myself out to a cafe and I sat down at the empty page and I wrote. And I wrote and I wrote. And so my routine from day one was to treat my writing as an actual job.

Typically I work from 9am–1pm, then walk away from it. Later in the day I go back to it and edit and re-write. I find editing and rewriting at home absolutely fine, but I have always needed to start my working day outside in the world, being part of the world.

And then the bushfires came. And the air outside became unbreathable. So there were no more trips to cafes to write. What a shock to have to work from home. I won’t lie, it took me some time to adjust. I’d pace around the lounge room like a caged lion, furious that I couldn’t get out into the world. But slowly, slowly, I knuckled down. I set myself up with a desk in the living room which is a fairly airy space with lots of windows. If I couldn’t get to a cafe to have my flat white while I wrote, then I’d make myself the best coffee I could at home, serve it to myself in a lovely china cup. I would simply have to knuckle down. I would have to get on with it at home. It was a struggle. But I managed to burst through to the other side. The point was, I didn’t have a choice. So there was nothing to do but stop thinking about where I’d rather be writing, and just get on with the business of writing.

How do you keep yourself on task when you’re working from home?

If the writing is working, if what I’m writing is interesting, if the words are pulling me, as opposed to me pushing them, then there’s no sense of needing to keep myself ‘on task’. When it’s not working, which is often, then I sort of nail myself to my chair and I continue to write, something, anything. I’ve done this often enough to know that even if I think I can never write another decent word, that something will come, even if what comes is crap (which it often is). HOWEVER, what I’ve come to know/taught myself is that even in the crap, there’s something worth keeping. Hemingway says, ‘I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit.’ Reading this made me see that actually there is merit in writing out as much crap as you can, because within that crap there will definitely be something worth keeping.

How do you take a break properly?

In the beginning, when I’d come home from a morning of writing, I’d have an urge to do something with my hands, something that involved another part of me. For some random reason, I started baking cakes. For anyone who knows me, they’ll tell you I’m not really a cake-baking kind of person. I had only ever baked a cake once in my life before (a rhubarb & apple crumble which I put under the grill to crisp and the oats I’d sprinkled on top for extra fibre caught fire) but for some reason I had these urges to bake and bake and bake. And so our waist lines grew and grew and grew. It was quite a delicious time really. Fortunately the baking has now stopped and waistlines decreased. Now when I need a break, I go for a walk, throw in a load of washing, clean the caked-on grease from around the knobs of my cooker, hoover the top of my wardobe, sort out the mountain of lidless tupperware containers that avalanche to the kitchen linoleum each time I open the pantry door.

Do you have any favourite treats or things to have nearby to help you work?

Lapsang Souchong tea by day. Pinot noir by night.

What are your thoughts on getting dressed for work when your office is at home?

When I made the transition from writing outside in a cafe to writing at home, one thing that was important to me was NOT to get dressed. I worked out if I were to be productive at home, I’d have to write in my pyjamas (without having showered). A friend of mine can only write if she’s not wearing a bra. We’ve all got our thing. There’s something about getting showered and dressed that makes me want to then pick up my bag and head out into the world. So I don’t do it. (Note: I always shower later in the day. Scout's honour.)

What are your top tips for working from home? Alternatively, what has working from home taught you?

That it can be done. That once you find a routine, once you find your corner, once you know whether you should dress or stay in your pyjamas or write in the nude, who cares, then just settle into it. Try to stop the voices that say, ‘This isn’t my office’, ’I hate being here’, ‘I’d rather be in a cafe/in the office/in the park.’ Right now, we can’t do any of those things. So make yourself comfortable. Make your writing space feel nice. Pop a pot plant on your desk – as Women’s Weekly as that may sound. Position your desk at the window (even if it looks stupid and doesn’t match your indoor decor). Drag your desk into the hall if that’s what feels good. The most important thing is to make yourself comfortable. Make it work. If tea’s your thing, ensure you have plenty of your favourite tea at home (definitely not suggesting anyone should hoard – said she with 6 boxes of Lapsang Souchong on hand in case things get worse). Get a lovely tea pot. Imagine a lovely waiter/waitress brought you the tea at your desk. Use your imagination. Get a beautiful cup. Write a poem, love song, letter to your cup. Do what you gotta do. One of the best things I’ve discovered about writing from home is that I can go to the toilet as much as I want without having to pack up my laptop, phone, headphones, handbag, wallet, car keys, sunnies. Having a bladder the size of something very small indeed, this aspect of working from home makes me very happy indeed.

What does your workspace look like, and where is it?  Would you change anything about it?

My work space is currently in my lounge room. I have an old table that I think came out of a first settlers cottage by the look of it. Quite damaged, with a big crack across the top of it (that someone has tried to repair, badly, with brown plastic resin stuff). But I don’t care. I love this table. I love that it has had a life. It feels to me a bit like a retired racehorse, put out to pasture here in my lounge room after a life of exhaustion. And it lets me lean on it. Lets me produce my work on it. I’m gentle with it. Pat its head. Dust it down. Always use a coaster. Place lovely objects on it to admire while I write.

What are you working on at the moment?

Well, I’m working on a second memoir, which is about going back to Scotland from Australia after a long period of absence and reconnecting with the landscape, the culture, the food, the weather, the sense of humour. The original plan was to go driving around Scotland with my brother and we’d stop off at little snack vans along the way, indulging in local delicacies like venison burgers with chips & HP sauce, local spatchcock deep fried with Chinese curry sauce, everything served with chips (we weren’t the colon cancer capital of Europe for nothing). The idea was that my brother and I would go on an emotion journey around the country, visit old haunts, lay old ghosts to rest and emerge the other side of the journey renewed, refreshed, ready to face the future. Only it didn’t end like that at all. I ended up stranded in Scotland after we had a fight outside the pie shop in Stirling and I booked an early flight back to Australia. The moral of this story is, if you’re going to plan your next book, do so with a great deal of flexibility.

Keep up to date with Ali's weird and wonderful life on her website, on Twitter, on Facebook, and on Instagram.

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