The Long Lunch

There are, I suppose, disadvantages to being self-employed, which is what most writers are. 

It’s important to be disciplined, which isn’t always easy, and it couldn’t hurt to be a bit of a self-starter, motivation-wise. Sometimes, the mental workspace can feel like a bit of a vacuum where insufficient praise and encouragement is fed in compared to the colossal weight of doubt and concern. 

Oddly, it’s pretty difficult to take a break, to stop, to risk booking a holiday, because what happens if a job comes in? Or edits need doing? Or a deadline shifts? or illness strikes?

On the other hand, some days, it’s not very easy to ignore the washing, dishes, beds, hoovering, tidying, cleaning, or a hundred household jobs that really need doing, and it’s a nightmare trying to work out just where work ends and so-called leisure time begins.

The husband and I work in the same industry, and we find ourselves talking about the jobs we’re doing at all sorts of odd times; if we’re in the supermarket, we call it multi-tasking, and everybody’s happy, but what if it’s date night and we’re all dressed up and dinner’s costing us a fortune? Is it really a good idea to thrash out plot points right there, right then? May be not.

The biggest single advantage to the husband and I both being freelancers, both working from home, is that, once in a while, and it doesn’t happen very often, because if it did it wouldn’t be nearly such a huge treat... Once in a while the husband and I take a long lunch together. 

It’s lovely.

The long lunch is euphemistic for spending three hours in the middle of a day doing something that no one in their right mind would consider normal behaviour during the working week.

We think of ourselves as nine-to-fivers, but, once in a while, we just don’t want to wait until Saturday to go window shopping, and sometimes we just don’t want to wait until Sunday morning to catch up with the week’s papers and magazines. 

Yes, I know it’s decadent, but you really ought to try it some time.