Exactly like in 1984. Or Animal Farm. Something, surely.

generate revenue or starve

As a person who's renting his place, I can assure you that I'm actively making it worse by process of living in it, and yet my rent continues to climb.

Viy is such a delight.

Stalin dies in that one, FYI.

I honestly like shared spaces more. But, then, most of what I do now is much more team-based with constant availability for communication. A very different kind of work than emerging from a cavern with a manuscript every six to 10 weeks.

Heck, totally forgot about the third office in the last pre-CCP building, where the studio and the warehouse were the same address. Nothing remarkable about that one, and it was perilously close to the restrooms. By then I was working from home most of the time & home was farthest from the office.

Anyway, thinking about it because I’ve now worked from home for so long and basically my house is my office, except when I work from the library or coffee shop. And all of my post-WW jobs, which have all paid more and had more responsibilities were all in open, shared team spaces, not oubliettes.

The second one I put more effort into. I painted it British racing green and one wall had five or six rows of butcher paper pinned up so I could do the Charlie Day murder chart of vampires and their lineages. I also put up a full-length curtain to block out the fluorescent light from the main area.

The first one was very standard. I had a desk and a desk chair and a separate reading chair to — physically! — redline manuscripts. I brought my own coffee maker so I didn’t have to drink the less savory kitchen brew. Awful pressboard bookshelves. Each full shelf contained eight boxes of books.

I am always in favor of policy over personality but this dude seems to be Making Things Happen so far, which is far preferable to Making Things Worse or the dreaded Making Things Worse Incrementally.

Putting in the work, doing effective good vs. managed-decline “lesser evil” status quo.