The Write Space?

In the past, I’ve babbled a bit about the challenges that come with writing at home when you’re already a work-at-home/telecommuter type, and your “regular job” can encroach not only on your writing time but even where you do that writing. For a time, my home office and main devoted writing space had been taken over by my need for a dedicated workspace when my employer pushed us all out of the cubicle farm at our office building and made us all full-time telecommuters.

By the time I was able to put aside those responsibilities and focus on my writing, I was pretty sick of looking at the walls of my home office. That’s when I started seeking out alternatives: the library, a bookstore cafe, fast food restaurants, and any place else I could set up shop for an hour or two and try to put some words on the page.

Now that I’m no longer working a “real job” and instead am writing full-time, I’ve rediscovered the joys of my home office/sanctuary/man cave/writing refuge. It’s not even a contest so far as this realm being my most productive. The house we bought last year affords me a sizable area not just for the actual writing but also my personal library and other reference materials, and it’s far enough from the house’s main areas and rooms that I can close the door and be completely isolated from everyone and everything when I need to concentrate.

That said, I still have the occasional need to break with the formula now and again, and head off to one of my “emergency writing locations.” As one might imagine, my productivity fluctuates depending on my destination du jour. The library is probably still my best bet, though that can change depending on which day I go. During the week when kids are in school? It definitely works. On weekends or during the school summer break? Yeah, not so much.

Cafes at bookstores or other smaller venues are a crapshoot, because you never know when you’re going to run into a crowd of those “Look at us drinking our coffees and writing our books and stuff!” types. There’s a tavern not too far from my house where I’ve experimented writing in conjunction with lunch that seems to work out, for the most part, because it’s never really that busy in the mid-afternoon. Of course, this option’s not really viable if the kids are out of school.

Interestingly, one place where I didn’t expect to be productive because of the kids is their Taekwondo school. Two nights a week, I take them to their class, which can run from forty-five minutes to an hour. Lately, I've been able to sit on the bleachers, laptop humming along, and I can tap out several hundred words in that space without blinking. It’s the weirdest thing.

Oh, and let’s not forget planes. I can really go to town on a two or three-hour flight. I’ve done some of my best work during plane trips to and from conventions. I’m actually kind of banking on a bit of that success here in about a week or so.

So, what’s your favorite place to write? Where are you most productive with your writing? Are they the same place? Does it have to be the cozy, familiar confines of home, do you have an “auxiliary writing spot,” or are you able to tap a bit into the “guerilla writing” mindset and just go for it anywhere and everywhere?

Inspired By Your Surroundings.

One of the downsides of being a full-time work-at-home employee for my day job is that by the time the weekend rolls around, I’m really rather tired of being stuck inside my house. My home office, which used to be my writing refuge, has by and large become an oversized cubicle, and by Saturday I’m tired of looking at it.

So, when I’m ready to sit down and write for a short while, and particularly after I’ve been working on the current novel project for a bit, I’m increasingly turning to alternative venues. The local branch of the public library is almost always my first choice. It’s close and quiet, and there’s just something about sitting among all those rows of bookshelves that almost always succeeds in kick-starting my writing motor.

And then, there are those places you visit which end up inspiring your writing. Parks, museums, art galleries, historical sites, ball parks and famous or unusual buildings have all fed the muse at one time or another. For me, such a place is Union Station here in Kansas City. Celebrating its 100th birthday later this year, the station had largely been closed for many years due to deterioration and dwindling train passenger traffic. After a massive restoration and renovation effort, it reopened in 1999 as both a train station and an entertainment destination, with restaurants, shops, a movie theater, a youth-focused science museum, and spaces for traveling museum exhibits.

I fell in the love with the station the first time I set foot inside it. Along with our Liberty Memorial and World War I Museum which sits just across the street, it’s long been my favorite city location to visit, and I always encourage friends visiting for the first time to check out both landmarks. You’re welcome for the plug, Kansas City Convention and Visitors Association. As for the station itself, it has many areas where visitors can sit and watch the world go by, including a great open café right in the middle of its vast “Grand Hall.” I’ve availed myself of that cozy little eatery on numerous occasions, enjoying my lunch while writing or editing a manuscript.

Once, just to see if I could do it because I had decided to write a story for submission to a local magazine, I sat myself at a table with the “task” of writing from scratch a story set there at the station. A few hours, one lunch and several glasses of tea later, I had a near-complete first draft of what ended up becoming "Absent Friends," which I eventually sold to that magazine. Since then, the station has continued to serve as a place where I can go and immerse myself in my writing.

So, when you’re looking to escape from home so that you can write for a bit in relative peace, or because you're hunting for inspiration, where do you go?

The World Is My Office

I started thinking about this topic after reading Jewel's post about coping with one's writing environment. There was a time when I believed that writing could only take place within a designated “writing space.” If not a dedicated office with a door to separate me from the distractions of the world—or my household, at least—then at least a corner of one room where I could establish my work area, with “strict” instructions to the other denizens of my abode that “This is where I write. No trespassing, yo.”

When my day job called for me to commute to a corporate workspace, my home office was my primary writing realm. I had it set up just so, with oft-used references close at hand, a television and requisite DVDs and such situated nearby (one of the “hazards” of writing media tie-in fiction is the need to refer to relevant television episodes or films), and a fully-functional arcade game in one corner.

That’s for reference, too. Honest. I use it to…uh…choreograph space battles. Yeah, that’s it.

Then, my day job converted all of us cubicle dwellers into full-time telecommuters, and now I work at home. So, what used to be my retreat after a long day at the office was converted into my primary office for that work. I had to reconfigure a few things to allow for a second computer and its peripherals, shelf space was given over to work-related reference manuals and other assorted bits and items, and so on. Instead of being here a few hours a night and on weekends, now I’m here. All. Day. Every. Day.

By the time the schedule calls for me to sit down and write in the evening? I’m sick of this place. When the weekend rolls around, I want to run screaming into the woods behind my house.

Then, what had been obvious to everyone else...you know, ever...finally dawned on me: I could probably write almost anywhere, if I tried hard enough.

This was not an easy sell for me, you understand. I used to make jokes about all the so-called “writers” who seemed to always be taking up space in the coffee shops and bookstore cafes around town, hunched over their laptops and trying to look accomplished and/or erudite while they checked e-Mail or updated their LiveJournal or played Solitaire or Tetris. Now, I aspired to be one of these people, if only for a few precious hours. I also hoped to be more productive.

I started with baby steps, with trips to the library one or two evenings a week and the odd Saturday morning. Of the various things I’ve tried, this one still seems to work the best. But, I like a little background buzz while I work, so I soon began experimenting with other locales. I used to go to the coffee bar at a local Borders book store, but soon after I started that, Borders imploded. I’ve avoided Barnes & Noble for that reason. Alternatively, I’ve made use of table space at a favorite restaurant, while being sure to order generously from their menu, of course. And hey! The game’s on! Fancy that.

At first, I was worried about the distractions which might come from such environments, but I long ago figured out that I’m able to tune out the worst of the chatter and other noises, even if I don’t have my mp3 player with me. After a few tentative fits and starts, I figured out how to write pretty much anywhere with little or no trouble. Airplanes, on a patio or in a waiting room, sitting on the bleachers while my kids take their Taekwondo lessons, and so on. Sometimes I even eschew my laptop and kick it old-school, pen and paper style. While I’m driving, I talk into a recorder and then transcribe my rough descriptions and dialogue into something more coherent.

Another option I’m considering is a “cowork” space, a few of which are starting to pop up here in the Kansas City area. One particular location that’s caught my attention seems geared to teleworkers and freelancers who are just looking for a change of venue as a means of boosting productivity. You can rent a desk and have access to printers, scanners, and copy machines, conference and presentation space, a business address for mail and packages and even a break room with complimentary coffee and tea. They offer pricing plans from half days to full months, with a sliding scale of amenities based on your plan of choice. Such a location provides a relaxed yet professional atmosphere that’s a step up from the library or coffee shop, and seems to present a nice change of pace from my home office. Plus, you never know; I might meet a potential client or two.

How about you? Are you adamant about your dedicated writing space, or can you wing it just about anywhere?

A writing evolution- learning to cope in your writing environment

You know those people who need background noise to concentrate?  They have to have music blasting, a television blaring; IPOD so loud that even with earphones jammed in their ears the entire room can hear the music.  Sometimes in the absence of noise they even hum to themselves.  Well I’m not one of those.  I have to have absolute silence to concentrate.  Why?  I don’t know how to filter sound.  I listen to everything: the lyrics of songs, the muted conversations in the background of the main characters on the TV.
Having absolute silence worked for me in high school though I shared a room with five garrulous siblings.  During exams I went back to the high school in the evenings and studied.  Yes other students were there and for most of them playing and socializing took precedence over studying.  But there were always empty classrooms that I could occupy to get a few hours of studying done; and then there was the University of the West Indies Extramural Center and the teachers college all within close proximity to my home. 

It worked when I was in college when I could sequester myself in a quiet room in the library and concentrate.  It even worked in graduate school when writing my dissertation. I would put my baby to bed and then work on it most of the night into the wee hours of the morning surviving on just three or four hours sleep.

Recently I found what worked in college and high school was not working for me.  Just like studying for an exam, I need total quiet when I write or prepare material for my classes.  But each time I sit down to write I hear the inevitable “Moooommmmmmmmy!” followed by bawling.   My ears perk up, my heart race and I rush to see what the problem is, fearing the worst until I hear the statement “My brother is being mean to me.”  I’m relieved that my worst fears didn’t come to fruition, but now my concentration is broken as I referee the issues between the kids.  When I finally resettle, before I can complete a paragraph, my older daughter delves into a longwinded spiel about the interactions between the kids in her class and all their dramas without an end in sight.  I would like to tune her out but I feel obligated to listen, after all, how could I foster communication without lending my ears?
I originally wrote between the kids’ bedtime and mine to circumvent the problem.  But now that my oldest is getting older, her bedtime has been edging a little closer to mine and my husband who was always an early bird, is now going to bed the same time as I do.  Plus, as I get older, I find 3 or 4 hours sleep is not enough.  I need at least six, preferably eight or else I get pounding headaches.  
So what do I do?  How do I get my writing in?  I installed a filter between my ears and my brain.  I had to.  I have learned and I am still learning (it’s a work in progress) to tune out background noises.   Right now I am writing this blog as I sit at the mall in the middle of a toddler play program with a microphone blaring out “If you’re happy and you know it,” and kids dancing and following the actions.

When I first started writing, a seasoned author gave me some very important advice, “Don’t find time to write, make time to write.”  Now I totally understand.

How has your approach to writing changed over time?

Do you know where your stories are?

This post is very late, please accept my apologies. I had everything typed up and ready to go and then I left my laptop on a plane somewhere between St. Kitts and Washington DC. It could have been devastating. Of course, there was one absolutely brilliant short story that I had written that I have now lost (I dare you to prove otherwise), but other than that, everything was backed up, so my loss was the hardware, which is significant but thankfully replaceable.

So this post is on the mundane issue of backing up. We can write the most articulate and mind-blowing stories, however, if we don't back up, we are basically playing the lottery with our work.You don't even have to be as careless (I prefer 'temporarily confused') as I was to lose your data. A power surge (ok, maybe that only happened in Ghana), a random hard drive crash or a virus (a whole other topic) can cause you to lose all of your data.

You can use CDs, DVDs or flash drives but my personal opinion is that it is never a good idea to keep anything sacred on media that is so easy to misplace or to sustain damage. External hard drives are also a good option, although you need to keep them somewhere separate from the rest of your hardware so that if there is a physical problem - power surge or fire, it will not affect your originals and your backups.

Cloud backups (backups to online servers) are becoming very popular now and are a good option. Some are free, but most are inexpensive. This is a good option once you go with a reliable provider.

What do you use for backing up your work? How often do you backup? Share your experiences with us.

Professional Organizers Can Help Writers

Professional organizers don't come cheap, but sometimes they can pay for themselves by making a writer much more productive.

I have used professional organizers twice, and they were a great help both times.

The first time, I had been living in New Orleans for almost fifteen years, and I had outgrown my home office. When a friend mentioned that she and a friend of hers were starting a professional organizing business, I commented that my office was a lost cause. Her eyes lit up. She said that they needed to get some practice jobs so they could get references and suggested that they give me a discounted price with the understanding that if I were happy with what they did, I would write a reference for them for their Website.

Dubious that anyone could help me, I still couldn't pass up such a good offer. The two women came to my office, crawled over piles and dug through the closet, took lots of measurements, and asked lots of questions. Then they came up with a brilliant plan that gave me lots more space and a more efficient work space. They even did all the work themselves in one day, shutting the door so I couldn't interfere. I was happy to write a good recommendation.

A lot of what they did for me was to make me question my assumptions. A few examples:

• I had been keeping every draft and every piece of reference material for every article I had ever written, or ever proposed, since I had started as a freelance writer. They convinced me that now that the Internet had been invented and information was easy to come by, I could get rid of many journals and all but the most recent background information for articles. 
• I had one table for writing and one table for editing, with reference books and basic supplies by each. That had made sense when editing work arrived by Fed-Ex or fax machine and I edited manually. But now that I edited mostly on the computer, they consolidated the two work areas into one. 
• I had all my bookcases and tables against the walls with a big empty space in the middle of the room that I used for storing piles of papers. They took my tables and arranged them in the shape of a U, making a work cockpit. From my chair I could now reach every project on every table as well as my printer and fax. The room felt bigger because my work area was neat and there weren't piles all over the floor; I had more work space because the "cockpit"  took advantage of the middle of the room; and I even had wall space for more bookcases. 

I went from having a messy, crowded office without enough space to work to a work space that saved me time and energy and suited my work style perfectly.

The second time I used a professional organizer was a month ago. We had lived in California for more than four years by then, and yet many boxes from my former office were still sitting in the hall, waiting to be unpacked. My major problem was that my office in California has no closets and is lined with built-in wood bookcases and drawers. They look beautiful, but I can't reach their top shelves, and they leave no space for filing cabinets. I was at a loss where to put books so I could reach them and how to store papers I would otherwise file.

The problem only increased over the succeeding four years as I generated more paper and started new projects. I had nowhere to file or store them, so the floor and every other surface in my office was covered with stacks of paper. I wasted 15 to 30 minutes a day looking for phone numbers I needed to call, notes I needed for a project, and other important things such as scissors, my calculator, my pocket knife, even my house keys.

I was overwhelmed and, some days, frustrated to tears. The mess stressed me out, but I didn't know where to start.

This time I found an organizer by searching Google for professional organizers near my Zip code and then reading the organizers' Websites carefully to see what types of jobs they did and whether they had experience with people with memory and health problems. I selected a company that listed "elderly people" as one of the groups it served.

The woman the company sent out was a former nurse who had seen worse messes than mine and was not intimidated.

• She took everything off the bookcases; I chose what books to keep, what to throw away (some of my medical and scientific books were so out of date that they were useless), and what to give to Goodwill. When she refilled my bookcases, I had room for books that were sitting in piles, waiting for a home. 
• She cleaned out my cabinets and reorganized them. 
• She convinced me that old computer, printer, and USB cables; old phones; and old phone cables should be boxed up and put in the garage, where they would be easy to access but not taking up limited drawer space in my office.  
• We went through all the piles of papers and still-packed moving cartons and we filled boxes and boxes with papers and junk I no longer needed. 
• With the addition of several files trays, my tall pile of "papers to do something with soon" became neatly organized by topic and urgency. 
• Once the hall was empty of moving boxes, I bought short bookcases for along the hall wall to store  books and papers for current projects. Now components of projects are together at a level I can reach, and the hall looks nice instead of as if we're preparing to move.
• My organizer took several empty plastic file boxes sitting in the hall and, using hanging folders I already had, filed important papers in them. I have no place to put the boxes except to stack them on the floor in the corner, but at least they look orderly and contained and I can find what I need.
• Many organizers—watch out for this if you decide to hire one!—want their clients to buy expensive prepackaged systems for organizing and filing. Personally, I don't care for nouveau-middle-class matchy-matchy decorating, and I certainly don't want to pay money for it. My organizer was similarly frugal. She organized my drawers and cabinets with things we already had around the house or in the garage, buying only a few attractive—and cheap—storage containers and file trays at Target. 
• Because my organizer didn't use a prepackaged system, she was able to organize my office and storage around the way I work and think, not around the way the designer of a prepackaged system did.

The professional movers who had packed us up in New Orleans had put things in boxes willy-nilly, without regard for what papers, folders, or books were grouped together in my office. Materials for a half-written novel had been packed in several different boxes. Thanks to the organizer's help in unpacking and sorting, I now have everything I need for that novel reunited.

My office is a haven again and no longer a place of stress.

This time, I received no friend discount or early client discount. I paid by the hour, and it was expensive. However, my organizer worked quickly and had excellent ideas for fixing my problems. I was amazed how quickly she got things in order, and I needed her for far fewer days than she or I originally estimated. I'm working efficiently now. I know where things are, and I no longer fret that I'm forgetting something I'm supposed to do. I don't have to climb over papers anymore to get to my desk or a bookcase or a cabinet.

As before, it was worthwhile to hire an organizer to get my office—and me—back on track. I expect 2012 to be more productive and lucrative than 2011, and hiring a professional organizer is a big reason why.


I'll be blogging again at Novel Spaces on February 6. Hope you visit again then.

—Shauna Roberts

Summer's End

In one week, on August 17, school begins again. Besides teaching three courses, I’ll resume my role as chair of the Xavier University IRB. And, even though I have some time left before I actually return to campus, I’ve already begun working on syllabi and the myriad other things that have to be completed before I step in front of my new classes the first time. This means that summer writing is essentially over for me. I’m saddened by that, but happy to call the summer of 2011 one of my most productive ever. I finished a 31,500 word novella, “Under the Ember Star,” finished putting together a collection of my horror fiction at over 70,000 words called “In the Language of Scorpions,” which called for me to write several new stories, and wrote or started several promising stories outside of that collection.

An important element in my production was my Xavier laptop, which I brought home with me at the start of summer. In the last few years, because of a motorcycle wreck and just the sheer impact of aging, I’ve found it harder and harder to sit for long hours in my home office chair in front of my desktop computer. My legs begin to burn and tingle and cramp. My back starts to twinge. But this summer, I stacked up a backrest on my bed, slid my laptop on the ‘lap desk” that Lana bought me, and worked much of the time outside my home office. Ninety percent of “Ember Star” was written that way, and I actually wrote faster than ever before.

On Monday I hauled my work computer back to work. I hate packing and unpacking it every day so I left it there. Even if I tried bringing it home every night, I would inevitably forget it at some crucial moment. So, yesterday I got myself a new laptop for home. I wrote this blog post on it, leaning against the backrest on my bed. I bought one with a 15+ inch screen, and also got a better designed mouse. The bigger screen allows me to blow the font size up to make writing easier on my aging eyes, and the new mouse eases my clicking burden.

What does this all have to do with writing? My point is that our writing worlds change as we get older. They have to. I can’t put in the marathon sessions in front of a desktop computer that I used to. I need bigger fonts for my eyes and anything that eases the burden on my wrists and hands and the rest of my body. I’ve found that being flexible in where I write and in the tools I use has allowed me to maintain, or even increase, my productivity while still protecting my physical wellbeing. Since writing is a huge part of my life, that’s incredibly important to me.

I’ve never been a particularly picky writer, in the sense of having to have everything just so in order to get words onto the page. But I used to have a narrower range of locations that I could write well in. I’ve found now that, by using a laptop, I can arrange just about anywhere to suit my writing needs. I’ve also found, though, that my tools have had to get more flexible too. All I used to need was a blank screen. Now I need my tools to ease the burden on my body so that it doesn’t protest while my mind is creating. Fortunately, we live in a wonderful world where writing tools are concerned. The right computer, right keyboard, right mouse, right software is out there. You just have to find them, and it may require a bit of experimentation before you do. But you need to have your tools work for you rather than against you.

How about you? How have you changed the way you write over the years? Have you gotten more flexible? Less flexible? What could you do tomorrow to make your writing easier? Maybe it’s time to do it.

Healthy Writing

Don't move. Stay exactly where you are. Take a stock of your posture right now as you read this post. Are you sitting on your bed hunched over your laptop? Sitting at a desk but slouched down in your chair (my personal favorite)? Or sitting upright, weight equally distributed on both hips in an ergonomically-designed chair? If you are like me, you seldom find yourself in the third position. Your spinal cord is a bundle of nervous tissue. It has several functions but the main one is that it transmits neural signals between the brain and the rest of the body, including pain signals. The spinal cord is encased in and protected by the spine. No wonder that, if you don't take care of your spine your general health can be adversely affected, not just by chronic back pain but general malaise and even depression. This is a bit of a departure from our normal discourse but still very important to all us novelnauts. As writers we spend a lot of time behind our computers or over books and if we don't pay attention to our posture our health will be affected. Here are a few tips. When you sit: Your back should be straight and your buttocks should touch the back of your chair. Your weight should be distributed equally between both hips. Your knees should be bent at right angles. Your feet should be flat on the floor. Finally, be sure to get up and move a bit every 30 minutes. Best wishes for a healthy back!

Where are the red shirts when you need them?

Today’s column was not going to be about back up files, computer safety, or internet security. However as writers, relying as we do on our computers, it is something that should always be on our minds.

Some computer problems are mechanical. Case in point being the hard drive on my old laptop physically breaking. Some computer problems are viral, your computer falls victim to software meant to bring it down. Usually these attacks are motivated by greed – the program destroying your system is hunting for identity and financial information. Other times it’s random malice -- for reasons that make sense to them people write programs that destabilize or corrupt computers then release them on the web. Sometimes the computer is stolen or destroyed.

These days everyone has backup copies of their important files; but simply having a backup may not be enough. The home of my friend Phaedra Weldon was burglarized a few years ago. Along with her computer, the thieves took all of the disks – including CD back-ups of her novel – in her home office. Another writer I know kept his backups in a separate room, but one day came home to find the fire department soaking the smoldering ashes that had once been his house. One writer I know works in a small room above her detached garage. She burns a CD of her writing folder at the end of each day and puts the CD in a fire-proof box in her bedroom. I know more than one writer who uses an online backup storage service. However, despite these dangers and options, most writers do what I do: a simple flash drive, usually carried on their person, with all of their works in progress and competed mss.

A few days ago my laptop began acting up – hesitating, not opening files unless clicked multiple times, taking more time to open programs or web pages, etc. Last night at about 10PM the virus corrupting it came out into the open. Posing as a Windows XP program it advises me that my computer is under attack and I must go to a website and provide credit card and personal information – plus agree to pay money – in order to reactivate the Windows firewall and anti-malware programs that come free on XP in the first place. My AVG anti-virus and spyware won’t launch – the fake XP warns it has blocked a malicious program (AVG) when I try. Funnily enough, when I launch the Windows security that came with the computer, I get the same message, listing Microsoft as a known source of threats. My system restore, which establishes restore points every 48 hours, can’t go back beyond yesterday so I can’t reset to a time before the virus hit.

Annoying. I’m going to have to pay for a virus clean-out by folks who know what they’re doing. But not a real problem. I thought. Until I plugged my flash drive into the family desktop and AVG told me the drive was corrupted. It will reformat the drive if I’d like, but it won’t open it. I can’t access any of my files – including the column I wrote for today about the hero’s journey.

Monday I’ll let Nathan’s minions at Island Computers purge my laptop of all malicious programs. Then I’m going to look into an online backup service. I recommend you do something similar.

Dream Office

The closet in my office is a catch-all, crammed with what my hubs likes to call ‘miscellaneous Phyllis stuff’.

From yarn and sewing supplies to lipstick pink, Kate Spade rain boots – it’s in there.

But I dream of the day I clean all the crap out and have my office closet transformed into this:

With my writing confined to the closet space, I’d turn the room into a private library with a comfy overstuffed chair for reading.

Now I’ve told you about my fantasy office. It’s your turn. What does the office of your dreams look like?

Butt In Chair and In Office

If I had to pick a favorite television show right now, it would have to be Supernanny. I’m not sure why. Neither is my husband, who takes one look at those little demons… eh, I mean darlings throwing tantrums in high-definition and immediately leaves the room.

In nearly every episode, our British heroine has to show beleaguered parents how to convince their children to sleep in their own beds. When the kids get out of bed, Supernanny patiently hauls them right back – over and over again. Even if it takes all night.

I can totally relate to those tots.

After spending nearly all of my writing life working at the kitchen table of our apartments, I finally live in a house and have an office of my own. But just like the kids on Supernanny, I can’t seem to stay in it. Somehow I drift, along with all of my writing junk, right back into the kitchen.

Since there’s no Supernanny for writers to drag me back to my office, my goal this year is to entice myself to stay in it. I’m going to make it so darn cool, I wouldn’t dream of writing anywhere else in the house.

My first step was to find a comfortable chair. After plopping my fat fanny in every chair in Office Max, I finally decided on this one:



It feels good enough to work in, yet not good enough to nap in. Yes, I’m still camping out in the kitchen, but not as much. This is very much a work-in-progress so we’ll see how it goes…

www.phyllisbourne.com

A Space Of My Own

Earlier this year, I read a post on fellow Novel Spaces blogger Stefanie Worth’s blog I found totally inspiring.

She'd carved out a neat, well-organized home writing space that quite frankly made me ashamed of the hellhole I call an office.

While her dictionary was at her fingertips, mine was on the floor underneath a Sephora box crammed with new make-up. Her computer was front and center on the desk. I had to push aside stacks of fashion magazines and romance novels to even sit my laptop on mine.

After revisiting Stefanie’s post a few times, I got busy decluttering (as moving everything out that wasn’t writing related) and organizing my own space.

Voila! My new and improved office.




And yes, it has remained in the same pristine condition you see here.

How, you wonder? Because I stay the heck out of it. Below is my kitchen table, which I haven’t eaten on in weeks:



Hey, at least my office is clean!

How do you keep your writing space organized????

Speaking for Myself

Recently I’ve been cleaning house, metaphorically and for real. In the process of clearing out the past you have to look at a lot of it, often more than you’d like. As I’ve made my way through tattered memories, I found fragments of a life I’d lived before, a life I grew into in some ways, and in others am just finding my way.

I found old photos of my workspace over the years and almost laughed to see how much it’s grown to dominate my life, into a full wall of my living space. From a few pictures on the wall over a small antique desk, my writing space has grown into an environment, a sort of Stargate into my own head.



What I have today is the luxury of living alone, a rarity in the 21st Century. It affords me a work area that I don’t have to break down at the end of my day, a room of my own. Don’t hate me because I am too set in my ways to let anyone into my life or loft. A few friends manage to make their way past my door. Those that survive are...occasionally welcomed back.

Of course I’m kidding. None of them survive.

But seriously. I like to work at night. It’s past the business hour, and all my friends are asleep, and when I drop into my own little world no one is awake to disturb me. I used to joke that I was feeding off my neighbor’s dreams, and there is an odd truth to that. You see things as you walk up and down your street that sift into your mind and come back up at the oddest times. Moods, anxieties, triumphs, joy...all work their way across your blank page as you stare at it, trying to see enough in your head to put down on the page.

I used to attribute my success to the surroundings. If I just had the right desk, the right pen, the right typewriter, as I bought my Mont Blanc, my IBM Selectric, my first Mac...I wrote on a 19th Century reproduction of a 13th century colonnade table I found in what could generously be called an antique store on Amsterdam Avenue in the 1970s. At $300 it seemed an extravagance at the time, but I still work on it to this day, buried behind an extension for my keyboard and side tables to support printer and hard drives.

The handful of pictures taped to the wall to inspire me has grown into a wall wide collage of any book I am currently working on, soon to be changed now that Blood Pressure has been put to press for release next year. My reference books sit within easy reach to the left in a floor to ceiling bookcase it took me decades to achieve. My chair is comfy and I can sit in it for hours without even realizing I am sitting in a chair, which is the best chair of all.



The black wall came in when I finished the work on the bookcases -- it was a way to suspend the images in front of me in a neutral field that extended to infinity, with no boundaries. I don’t even look at the pictures much once the writing begins -- it’s more like their gestalt presence informs the work, creates a mood that focuses the story each time I sit down.

Sound good? Try explaining to friends who come by and want to plop down in your seat and check their e-mail that they’re farting into your holy of holies, or tell friends who see your growing collages as awfully like the ones they saw in that movie on cable the other night, you know, the one about the serial killer?

It wasn’t me.

There are good sides and bad sides to any working situation, whether your writing space is big or small, temporary or permanent. You don’t find the time to write, you make it, as I am making time now, after a late night party, suddenly realizing the sun is creeping up on me and it’s time to get some sleep before brunch...and you don’t find the space to write, you make it.

The trick is to realize that the real writing space is between your ears. No matter what your luxuries or limitations are (and there’s a cupola on top of an old mansion nearby I would love to go to each day to write, with a warm pot of tea -- no matter how good my space sounds to you, we all have a fantasy of trading up...) what you write is dependent on only one thing -- you.

Not the right time, the right space, the right tool. Just the right headset to make sure that anywhere you are the best damn place in the world to write. Lately, I find pleasure in taking my laptop to the bar of a nearby restaurant and eating brunch while I work. I get to listen in on the people around me, and also use tuning them out to focus better. I love my desk at night, but writing is also about -- well, sometimes getting a little “strange,” as the “guys” would say, taking your work out of your comfort zone physically as well as mentally, and reminding yourself that you can still write without the props -- and without a safety net. It’s scary...

But fun.

Paris or Bust

The kitchen table, faded pajamas and endless cups of black coffee are my writing reality.

However, I long for a writing day at a sidewalk café in Paris, a steamy café au lait at my fingertips and a newly purchased pair of Repetto ballet flats on my feet.

Writing romance in the City of Light has been at the top of my if-I-hit-the-lotto wish list for eons.

So imagine my delight when I came across Eric Maisel’s, A Writer’s Paris at my local Books-A-Million. Ahhhh, a kindred spirit (except for the shoe part).

I immediately bought it, sat down in the bookstore’s café and spent the afternoon devouring every word. Half travel guide/half writing instruction, the book is broken down into 35 essays that incorporate Paris accommodations and writing spot suggestions as well as a novel planning guide to keep your book on track during your stay.

If a writing sabbatical in Paris isn’t financially realistic - no problem. The real treat of “A Writer’s Paris” is the ideas easily translate to your city, your town, right now.

Because as Maisel writes on page 102 of this book:

“You can write at your desk, you can write at your cubicle at work, you can write – if you are a writer – anywhere.”

Your turn. Where's your fantasy writing spot????

The writer's office: get it on the cheap

When I decided to seriously try my hand at fiction, I had been making my living for years as a freelance medical writer and editor and had an office fully stocked with goodies—fax machine, copy machine, a couple dozen dictionaries, a bookcase full of supplies, even a transcription machine.

Luckily—given the yearly earnings of a fiction writer just starting out—no such stockpile is needed to get started in fiction. In fact, if you already have a computer with Internet access and a telephone, you can outfit your office for less than $500. I did so myself, in fact, after Hurricane Katrina displaced me for a few months and I created a bare-bones office to keep working.

Here's what I recommend if space or finances limit you to the minimum:

•a light-business-duty multifunction machine that prints, copies, scans, and faxes ($100–$200). A multifunction machine doesn't need to cost much more than a printer, and they are often on sale at office supply stores.

•a telephone answering machine ($20–$30) or a voice-mail system. You don't want to miss any calls from editors while you're at the post office mailing submissions.

•a sturdy card table ($50–100). You can use it as a computer table, a desk, or a surface to put your printer and dictionary on.

•a hardcopy dictionary that comes with a CD-ROM for your computer ($75–$100).

•a thesaurus. My favorite is Rodale's The Synonym Finder, which retails in paperback for $17.

•a spiral-bound month-by-month calendar (<$15). All your contest and anthology deadlines and story deadlines can go in here and be in one place. You can also check off the days you write. Most such calendars have note space where you can log your business phone calls, submissions, or other information you need to keep a record of. •basic office supplies ($100–$150). For myself, this would include a black-ink Pilot Dr. Grip gel pen, pen refills, a box of #1 pencils, bright white printing paper, 8-1/2 x 11 pads, colored small paperclips, colored large paperclips, binder clips, file folders, tape, scissors, Post-Its, #10 business envelopes, stamps, and back-up ink cartridges. (Substitute your own favorites here.)

•a ledger (<$20). For tax purposes, you need to track your business expenses and earnings. Tossing receipts and check stubs into a grocery bag is not considered good accounting practice. •a back--up system (price ranges widely). Losing a story or book you put many hours into can be devastating. Back up your files at least once a day, and you'll never lose more than a day's work. Some cheap ways to back up are onto CDs, a Zip disk, or a flash drive.

And some extras that are really nice to have if you have the money and space:

•a desk, preferably big with drawers.

•an ergonomic chair so you can work comfortably for long hours.

•a high-speed Internet connection.

•a bookcase (various prices).

•a file cabinet.

•a hard-disk back-up and/or off-site storage (various prices).

Something I learned from my own experiences after Hurricane Katrina: Ask friends and relatives for castoffs from their own home office. Many people have office supplies they no longer want or need, perhaps even an old printer or desk sitting around, and are glad to get rid of them and free up some space.

Other places to get things cheap for your office are eBay; second-hand stores; garage sales and estate sales in upscale neighborhood; and stores that sell new but dented, scratched, or otherwise damaged merchandise at big discounts.

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I'll be posting again at Novel Spaces on August 7. Find out then what a nonfiction writer needs to unlearn when expanding into fiction.

—Shauna Roberts