Other writers have separate rooms, or
studies, in which they do their writing, but I prefer to write in my living
room. I have a computer desk on wheels that I roll out in front of my favourite
easy chair. On it is my laptop, baskets full of pens and pencils and erasers,
three manuscript boxes full of
works-in-progress, plus bottles of herbs and other supplements I take on a
regular basis, with meals. Why are these on my desk? Because I often eat off a
lap tray while I work.
I also have what my son calls a “sippy cup”
full of water or diet cola. The “sippy cup” is spill proof, because of the time
I spilled cola all over my new laptop, then had to take it in for repairs. I
was lucky it was salvageable at all.
My desk is a total mess. I have always
worked better in the midst of clutter, but I’m glad there’s no picture included
with this post! But the view is nice. In front of me is our bay window, looking
out onto our apple tree. I like to watch the squirrels stealing apples in the
fall. I like the way they twitch their tales, look all around, then grab an
apple in their paws, and scamper away.
The apple sometimes looks bigger than the squirrel.
Generally, one or both of my cats sit on my
chair, purring or sleeping. The littlest one, a Manx, often sits in the chair
with me. The bigger one, a Tonkinese mix, likes to curl up on the chair back.
If my hair touches his ears, he flicks them in annoyance, but will rarely move
them out of range. It’s me, of course,
who has to move. I’ve often had the dubious pleasure of a furry tale waving in
front of my face, or lying flat across my nose.
The Manx is quite skittish. We rescued her
from the streets, and she must have been traumatized out there. She purrs
loudly and easily, and is very sweet, but if you so much as breathe the wrong
way, she takes off fast. She’s yanked two sets of headphones out of my computer
this way, and bent them all out of shape.
The two cats also don’t like each other
much. If they get too close, hissing and spitting and rushing off in several
directions at once take place. None of this is particularly conducive to
creativity.
So why don’t I go upstairs to the perfectly
nice converted bedroom Ihave up there, where I used to do my freelance editing
work on my PC? The room is too small,and
I don’t like to feel shut away from the rest of my life. I do my best work in
an empty house, no matter what room I’m in, but the desk in the living room
makes writing seem an organic part of my life, rather than something set apart.
I also don’t feel all that comfortable in a
desk chair. Right now, I am typing this on my rollout desk, in my armchair,
with my legs crossed over one arm! This is probably hideously ergonomically
incorrect, but it works for me. As long as I get up and walk around on a
regular basis, of course. I do this quite a lot, not for health reasons, but to
distract myself from the fact that I’m stuck.
Again.
Sheila Dalton has written books for
children, adults and teens, and has been pubished by Doubleday Canada, Dundurn
and Houghton-Mifflin, among others. You can read more about her work at her
website:
