The Office

I write this blog entry from my tent in the Scottish Highlands on a lovely sunny day. For the past three months I have been writing from Croatia and before that spent a wonderful three months getting to know a little of India's Mumbai. You might wonder how someone can manage such a life while living on a tiny budget. The easy answer is that I am lucky to have good friends and family but the more interesting one is that, once you shake the mundane expectations of society, once you free yourself from the burden of insurance, it is incredible how little you need to be happy. With 40% of Britons proclaiming dissatisfaction with their lives and work, there are millions of people who would benefit from really understanding that message. Many will have young children and other responsibilities that restrict their choices but even they could gain by refocusing on what is important.
To some, I have opted out of society but that is not true. A couple of years ago I was asked by Sky TV to take part in a documentary about people who had done just that. I declined, explaining that that is not what I had done. I simply took my ambitions and shaped them to my skills and means. Technically, I am unemployed and homeless but this simple definition belies the truth. I probably work harder than many people in so-called gainful employment. I write almost every day. I continue with the Dreamwords series. The current novel is at 700 pages as I try to edit it down to size. True, I write this entry from a tent because I cannot afford a home, but I could get state help and chose not to do so. I have a modest income that just supports what I do and allows me the freedom to work for tomorrow and live for today.
Such a life is not for most and I would not encourage dissatisfied workers to run away from home and live on the streets. My story makes my solution work for me but, for each person, the exercise of taking inventory, of sloughing physical and unnecessary baggage in order to get a life, of examining what you (and your loved ones if appropriate) really need, is one we should all undertake every now and then. When you include tax, the expensive home near work, the extra clothes you have to buy, the extra car, fuel or public transport to and from work, the cost of treats to de-stress yourself, the desperate annual holiday, the expense of after-work drinks or gym membership - when every item is included in the inventory, you will be amazed at how much you are spending simply to fuel the work you are so dissatisfied with. I live well and happily on a pittance and yet used to struggle on a healthy salary. This is not a spiritual thing, a life of self-denial. Someday I hope to earn enough by writing to afford a house again. I would love to send my son a ticket to join me in a nice hotel somewhere. The truth is that, in my other life, I was too busy, too stressed, too focused on other people's priorities to do what I knew I should. Either by personal mismanagement or poor focus, I was easily one of those 40%. Now I am not.

As a novelist, I have never felt the need to update this blog regularly. Practicalities made it difficult and, in any case, it would have been boring. I doubt if many people would be interested to hear that I sat alone and created two pages on a Tuesday and then rewrote one of them on the Wednesday - on and on for years. Writers, by the nature of their self-imposed isolation, are not always the most interesting of people - in a day-to-day journal sense at least. However, I now have the perfect technological set-up. Most of my power problems are resolved to the point that I am geared to keep writing for the five month period ahead, directly from my tent. I may have to climb a mountain on occasion to get a signal, but I should be able to increase my blog posts during this time to explain what I am doing, where and why.
I hope, in this way, to open a door on a world that is normally closed to the rest of you living in Normal-Land. With luck, I will inspire some to wonder what they could do to change their lives for the better.
In the process, I will explain what equipment I use, how I write without mains electricity in a country not known for its solar gift to the nation, how I maintain a net connection, two mobile phones, music and even watch the occasional movie, how I defeat loneliness, overcome inertia, stay positive and healthy, keep up with the news, remain engaged with the rest of the world - in short, how I survive and thrive in the most incredible office in the world. I am sometimes asked the question: How can you spoil your enjoyment of such a place by polluting it with electronics? This is the wrong question. Technology allows me to work anywhere, so why would I choose a bland, expensive box in an uninspiring setting when I can be here?

Of course, all of this assumes I do not fall and break a leg, drown while crossing a river or perish in one of the violent storms sure to come my way. But, hey, there is a price for everything.

The photo is taken of and from my mobile office.

Welcome to my world.