A Writer's Place

Writers usually have a space they call their own to do their creative thinking in. My office is in a corner of the living room near a large window. I have an IKEA corner desk that is large enough: to place my open WIP binders on top, hold a couple of DVDs if I don't feel like writing and need a perk-me-up, a crystal angel, a Pooh Bear knick-knack to inspire me to write, a cork board with my writing charts (WIP outline) pinned up, a propped up framed picture of a street in Paris, a teddy bear tin with cookies in it and a pencil stand with sharpened pencils.

The majority of my writing is not done at my desk, but in an old, comfortable brown rocker-recliner in another corner next to a bookcase. It is there the ideas get jotted down or a flurry of writing, either in pen or pencil, into a large scribbler. It rarely happens that I am able to write after just sitting and thinking. I need to read, and read I do; in a variety of genres apart from the dark fantasy I am currently working on. I may come across a phrase that sparks an action scene to be placed later into a current WIP or one of two others for the future. Sometimes it fits nowhere and remains in the scribbler as a bit piece for another story at a later time.

My temporary boss at work gave me a wonderful 2008 calendar portfolio "Alberta Rangeland" with panoramic views of wranglers with their horses and cattle. It's hanging on the wall where the Paris picture ought to go. Just looking at it gives me the wanderlust to go home, which is in Alberta. I need to put in a few more years at the corporate grindstone before heading for open pastures.

But first, I need to get my stories out there for others to read…