Eating and Living Like a Writer, Part 2

Tips for the nouveau poor who are now being forced to join all of us writers in the proverbial "same boat":

-Substitute vinegar-and-water, mixed 50-50, for most cleaning liquids and supplies; and what that won't clean/deodorize, baking soda will.
-If you need household goods, buy second-hand.
-Because you're living like a writer, you'll be losing two or three sizes. New business suits, brand-new with tags, can be bought for as low as $35 on eBay.
-Having less body means you can quit the gym and do exercise DVDs at home.
-Have shoes and leather items repaired.
-Have a yard sale or block sale.
-You are lovely just as you are and don't need night creams, manicures, Botox, spas, or bling.
-Do everything possible to avoid dry cleaning.
-Nowadays it's either fine wines or your kid's tuition. Which is it?
-Make a goal of going to the grocery store only once per month.
-Call the 1-800 number of every company that sends you catalogs and have them take you off their mailing lists.
-Use a phone card to make long-distance calls. I really save with that one.
-My cellphone is for emergencies only. Nobody has the number. I pay $10 a month for it.
-Edible pets are fashion-forward. It's dreadful but true.

I Gave Up Cleaning and Lived

It isn't like me, but I haven't cleaned house for four months while manuscripts, queries, synopses, proofreading, job, etc. took up all my time. But the cobwebbing doesn't look that bad. And three books got done while I spent March through June lying flat (axing cedar trees, I tore a ligament or something). Vacuuming caused pain. Bending. Opening the oven. Washing sink. Bedmaking. Pulling clothes from washer into dryer. Just sitting up was an ordeal. Sorry, Mom (she's Polish, and the only people scrubbier than the Dutch are the Poles), but I couldn't do anything for longer than 1 minute but write. From the bed I used a wireless keyboard and mouse.

This is the longest time I've ever gone without housecleaning, and the most productive writing time of my life so far. Coincidence? V. Woolf advised writers to "kill the angel in the house." Who knew she meant: "Don't clean"?

I'm mobile and pain-free now, thanks to Laura Self, physical therapist at SSM in Eureka, MO. (When we met she asked agonized, skeletal me if I'd like to sit down. I told her, "Oh, no ma'am. I don't sit.")