Monday, November 13, 2006

Making Your Office Writer-friendly

Okay, okay, so I don’t have an office. I will someday, but for right now, I have a corner in my bedroom. Granted, since the move, it’s a bigger corner than I had before. I can scoot my chair back without hitting my bed. I’ve got elbow room on both sides and a great window at my left. It gives me more scope for the imagination than my old room.

There’s just one problem. I haven’t had the time to put this area together the way I want to. See, my husband is a day sleeper and I get most of my unpacking, etc, done during the day, but because Hubby is in the bedroom all afternoon, the bedroom is sadly neglected. I’m getting ready for bed when he gets up, and I have pulled a few “unpack until three a.m.” shifts, but those aren’t really ideal. So my office area isn’t perfect yet.

But, soon it will be. I had the honor to meet artist Carol Harding this last Saturday, and she gave me a print of her piece “Symbols of the Orient” which will be on display at the Springville Art Museum. This piece is so beautiful. It shows a Japanese wedding kimono and some black pottery, and you can see the stitches of embroidery on the kimono. It’s amazing how she created that with pastels. The picture ties right in with “Nothing to Regret” and with the sequel which I’m currently finishing up. (I know, I keep saying it’s almost done. Do you know how hard it is to really finish up historical fiction?) I am going to frame this picture and hang it right over my desk.

Which, in a long, roundabout way, brings me to the real topic of this blog. Is your writing area conducive to writing? Do you have your papers under control? Do you have pens and pencils handy, do you have Post-it notes to hang up reminders to yourself, and is it a place where you feel you truly can be creative? When my desk is cluttered and I can’t find anything I’m looking for, it slows down my creative juices. When I can only sneak in five minutes to write and four minutes is spent looking for that quote I know I put right there, it’s not a good use of my time.

Additionally, is it beautiful? Do you have pictures that inspire you, quotes that motivate you hanging on the walls? Have you surrounded yourself with things that feed your spirit? Right now I have my grandmother’s clock hanging to my left, pictures of my grandfather and great-great-grandparents in frames on top of the desk, and a ceramic mug that fellow Storymaker Shirley Bahlmann gave me. And I have plans to not only hang up the Carol Harding, but I’m going to take my books down to Kinko’s and have the covers made into 8 X 10 pictures to go on either side of the painting. I’ll be surrounded by beauty on all sides.

Remember to feed your soul while you write. True, most of your time will be spent staring at the screen, but when your eyes do wander, let them land on things that uplift and inspire you.

1 comment:

Annette Lyon said...

I've got a couple of "feel good" things in my office. A framed 5 pound Hershey bar wrapper (chocolate is my muse), a mug from Mama Mia the musical, and a great wooden sign made by fellow writer and friend Josi Kilpack that reads, "I will NOT like like a NORMAL person. I am a writer!" There's also a cannister of chocolate truffles on the bookshelf for when I reach my daily writing goal. Hey, it works for me!

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