In about 24 hours, I’ll be loading up the car to drive to Palm Springs to crank out the book.

Believe it or not, I am ready. I am prepared. I am exactly where I want to be. This weekend, I synthesized four complicated databases into one, categorized (and subcategorized) more than 200 free and bargain online tools, created a mail merge template, sorted the tools by category, then merged the data into 9 chapters.

Now I need to calmly, coolly, methodically work through the tools in each chapter to produce the nuts and bolts of the book. As I write, I’m going to keep a running list of the tasks that need to be completed in the 2 weeks after I return from the trip, and my assistant and I are on track to click through them to turn the thing in before the deadline.

Holy crap. It’s working.

When I say “believe it or not,” I expect many of you may not believe it. My mother is amazed I didn’t just rush into this and get overwhelmed. I am pretty sure my father has a pool going at his work on whether or not I’ll pull this off. And I’m kind of flabbergasted that I’ve made a plan and am sticking to it.

I expect the next week to be a bitch. It’ll be boring, grinding, exhausting. There’s nothing inherently fun about pounding out page after page after page with a concrete deadline staring at you.

I’m probably not going to dress much. I’m going to sit in a dark condo with just the computer screen glowing. I’m going to keep weird hours, eat unappetizing food, panic that I’m not going to finish, take for granted that I will and waste some time. Oh, and there will be chocolate. You can bet on that. And as soon as I get there, I’ll use Layar, a free tool that people recommended, to map out the location of the nearest cupcakes.

The reason I’m escaping is so that I don’t have to be a girlfriend, a runner, a copywriter, a daughter, a friend or even a friendly human being for the week. I’m going to morph into a moody, intense writer with a sole purpose: finish. the. book.

Although I am dreading the grind somewhat, I’m so excited I can hardly wait for my adventure to begin. I’ve never done anything like this before, and I think it’s going to work. Everything else about my plan to write this book in three months has gone well, and I have no reason to doubt that I can pull this off. Ok, I actually have a THOUSAND doubts, but no real logic behind them!

Woohoo! Off I go….

Let’s talk about someone else’s drama for once, shall we?

My executive suite falls between two partners in some kind of a financial business. These are two very, very angry young men without proper knowledge of their inside voices.

“What the EFF? You EFFING hang up on me, your partner? You EFFING [this] and you EFFING [that] and it’s my EFFING money, you EFFING EFF!”

And on and on. Sometimes there was banging of furniture and frequently slamming of doors. And of course, there was lots of storming out of one office then the other. After the worst squalls, my other neighbors would peek their heads into the hallway and whisper, “Is everything safe?”

I never really felt threatened by their fights, even though I was scared to knock on their door to remind them they were among professionals. When it first started happening, I tattled to the building management, and the guys received warnings. The other tenants, however, were very unhappy with the mayhem. Today the partners broke up, and one of them (the one I actually liked) moved out of the office officially.

What struck me about this situation was how very, very peaceful I am in my business. I don’t yell, and I don’t get yelled at. I don’t fight. The only drama is that sometimes I have too much to do and miss a deadline or have to stay very late or work over the weekend. At my last job, there was always drama. People fought, conspired, manipulated and backstabbed. When my email dinged, I would cringe, fearing my boss’ wrath. One of my best friends is a project manager, and she sometimes has to mediate when the heads of two departments with different goals get together with penis rulers to see who wins an argument about the direction of the project (but her colleagues also bring in donuts, which helps).

My wish for you in your workplace is going to sound disgustingly sappy, but here is my sincere hope:

May you find a job with peace. May you work in an environment where you smile every day.

May your feedback be constructive, not cruel, and your disagreements feel like opportunities, not opposition.

No one deserves to be abused by bullies at a job, and I hope if you’re in that situation that each day you find a few moments to take steps toward changing your environment.