Describe your writing space

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Clio

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If this belongs in Office Party, I apologise in advance and beg a Mod to move it.

One of our UK newspapers did a series on famous writers' desks recently that was fascinating. I thought it might be fun to see what everyone's workspace is like - we're all writers, but diverse characters.

So - where do you write in the home? Are you a clutter fan or a neat freak? Is your desk piled with all sorts of crap, or is it a pristine space with just the laptop or PC to decorate it? What else is in the room that contributes to your writing?

I write in my bedroom/study on a PC and my desk has the following adornments:

Happy Buddha - whose belly is rubbed every day for luck
An ornate old-fashioned quill pen in a silver ink-well
Speakers
Coaster for essential coffee or vodka and coke
Piles of printed articles that I just pull off the Internet for bits of research
Stephen King's On Writing
At the moment a copy of Robert Harris' Pompeii (although this is because I have forgotten to put it back on the shelf)
Various pens
Yellow post-its

On the wall behind the computer is my corkboard, on which I pin inspirational things:

A photo of Mary Renault and all the covers of her first editions
A big notice bearing the King rubric: 'The adverb is not your friend'
A photo of my favourite bust of the Emperor Augustus
A photo of a wonderful gentleman called John Graham who sets the best cryptic crosswords in the Guardian newspaper under the alias of Araucaria
A photo of a rather gorgeous adolescent on whom I've based a fictional character in my WIP

Portable TV - used only as a monitor for games
Various candles
A bookcase
Nicorette stop smoking chewing gum - sadly rarely used
A classical guitar in its case
Photos of my kids

On the floor are about 350 books stacked in crates, as I need a new bookcase, and I also have an ever-present Persian cat, who occupies my chair as soon as my backside leaves it for a minute.

So - what's your writing room like, folks?
 
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My laptop sits on the coffee table in the living room.

My Neo goes wherever I go.

Short but sweet.
 

HeronW

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Wide table with laptop and usually a cat on the table. A short bookshelf unit is against the wall. Bottom shelf has the old laptop, wooden whatnot organizer with my fav pens, and the two current idea notebooks. Middle shelf has a basket with wierd rocks from the beach, more notebooks, and a wooden bowl with Tarot of the Cat People and other fun stuff in it. Top shelf has an assortment of dragons in pewter, my collection of fantasy dragon blades, and a bunch of teddy bears--need to dust the Chanukah/Xmas bears :}
 

Adam

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On my desk I have:
* Monitor (which is on top of a stack of old VHS videos for height)
* Keyboard
* Mouse
* Speakers
* 2 USB flash drives
* 2 Penknives
* 2 A5 ruled notepads
* 1 A4 ruled jotter in a fake leather folder
* A pocket PC and charge unit
* My Writers Bureau course material
* A pint glass of water (vital!)

I also have a small whiteboard that I put important information on (that I generally ignore) and a big clock.

:)
 

eLfwriter

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I bring my laptop where ever I think I'll be able to concentrate, since inspiration moves around in my case. This could be partially due to the fact that my desk was "borrowed" *coughstolenhackcough* by my little brother a few years ago and I am now desk-less ... :(

I like to be outside when I write, preferably at the cabin under a tree or on the dock or on the deck swing ... but if it's snowing (like today) I like to be able to watch outside through the comfort of a glass pane, so inevitably I can be found blissfully typing away near a window. This allows for optimum use of the 'Staring into Space, Where My Ideas Float in Plethora' technique.

Oh, and there should be a table nearby to stack stuff on. My character sketches and the Book of the Week (the Historian this week) and, of course, the tea-and-cookie platter. People who write without tea-and-cookies boggle me @_@.

My dog, AKA the Writing Mascot, is forever at my feet. She helps with the BIC challenge, since if I get up too quickly, I will trip over her. :)

One day, I shall reclaim my desk, but until then, I go wherever the whim takes me ...
 

DamaNegra

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On my desk I've got my laptop with an external keyboard and mouse. There's an Asterix plushie that I won on a crane, and also a vase full of office supplies. There's a bamboo and a cactus, also a bunch of index cards, my iPod case, a seashell, a stapler, all the medicines I take and a USB stick. That's always on my desk, the clutter may vary depending on the day (and amount of homework I have). But I don't write on my laptop, I only use it for editing.

For writing, I take my Neo either to the garden where I have a gorgeous view of the mountains, or to the living room, where my brother playing nintendo is a welcome and non-obstrusive distraction to keep the creative juices flowing.
 

Bubastes

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I don't have a dedicated writing space at home. I always have my Neo, pen, and notebook with me and I can write practically anywhere. My laptop is on an adjustable roller-table-thingy in front of my couch, but I often move it around. The table allows me to type standing up if I choose. I guess my writing space is wherever I am.
 

Ciera_

I definitely have no specific place. I sit on my bed, which is a little uncomfortable a position to write in, or I sit on the couch. I can write equally well almost anywhere, from my dad's house to my room to perched on the edge of the bathroom tub. (That last one is only hypothetical, mind you). My room is generally a disaster, but I am in no way a 'clutter' fan. I'm kind of an obsessive neat-freak, but that's usually overpowered by laziness.
My dog is in no way a mascot. He's a little antisocial and rarely sits with me while I write.(Unless you count bumping around under my bed while I write, he loves it under there.)
Being comfortable, alone, and undisturbed (strangely, talking on MSN actually helps, providing I'm Talking to particular people...) are pretty much my only factors in choosing a writing space.
 

Jersey Chick

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My office:

My desk

1. Two coffee cups (one in the shape of a penguin) holding pens
2. A plastic organizer thingie stuffed with manila folders - notes, contracts, my husband's work stuff
3. A small wooden organizer thingie that has my copy of Strunk & White's, a dictionary, thesaurus, and my Character Naming Sourcebook. It's also got a roll of tape, some various pieces of paper shoved into one of the slots, a squeezy stress cow, and a small statue of a gargolye named Irv.

The room itself -

Two bookshelves - a 5 shelf unit that's mostly research materials, but the two lower shelves have paperbacks, and a 3 shelf unit that holds nonfiction and hardcover fiction.

A small, two shelf curio cabinet that holds my crystal penguins, my non-crystal (yet non-living) penguins, my cool bottle collection, and a wolf spirit candle holder (it's cool, the eyes glow when I light the candle.

A CD tower - on top of that sits my boxing nun in a Tigger coffee mug, and Pierre, a one-armed stuffed skunk in a beret.

The stereo - more bottles and my peace cow, a reed diffuser (that needs to be replaced), a hedgehog (ceramic), a small Gumby that I've had since high school.

In the closet, there is a built in bookshelf unit - 5 shelves, where I put the rest of my books.

On the walls - a penguin print, an Albert Einstein poster, a framed print of the Vietnam War Memorial in DC, pictures of my kids, and a print of a wolf, a Chinese New Year mask, and some framed postcards that I like.

It's cozy and cluttered and all mine. I have a laptop, but I find I concentrate better in my office than I do when I bring the laptop out. My desk always looks like a gale-force wind swept through, but I can always find what I'm looking for.
 

Eldritch

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I write surrounded by cats in my office.

Framed and hanging on the wall is my pride and joy, a photo of me and Stephen King, and the diaper changing pad that he and Dave Barry autographed many years ago at the Miami Book Fair.

On my desk right now:
A box of Chocolate Covered Mint Oreos
A brain-shaped stress ball (Whenever I'm stuck, I just give my brain a squeeze)
Two lamps, a phone, my computer monitor, and
An old black and white framed photo of little me in the graveyard, talking to a statue.
 

Mumut

Well begun is half done...
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I have my favourite lounge chair on the back veranda looking out over the pool to an acre of back garden. There are sufficient trees to nearly hide the housing estate they built there some years ago. I have a table with tea, radio, bird and butterfly books and my binoculars. The phone so I don't have to rush into the house to answer it. And lists. I've a list of writing I have to do. A list of shopping I have to get. A long-term list of work in the house to get it ready to sell (I'm now fed up with said housing estate). A list of Christmas presents to buy.
 

redpbass

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As I'm a bit of a nerd, I have some unusual things. Like four computers.

Anyway, this is my writing space.

My computer Desk (a big, two level thing):
Comp 1: This one. I use this for research and general internet/gaming.
All of my (hand)writing, sketching, and general art tools are in, on, or in a box sitting below this desk. My stereo sits on the very top next to my POS printer.
As for interesting things, I have some sort of vaguely mid-eastern carved horse model that my uncle gave me. It's got bits of shell and what is probably some sort of tin or copper or other cheap metal stuck on it as decoration...pretty cool. I also have a little marble statue of a dinosaur that I picked up when I visited Cathedral Caverns a couple years back. Other than that, the desk has stacks of blank and burned DVDs, along with an ever-growing mound of pocket change (which I still need to sort and dispose of). My desk is a mess.

Coincidentally, I also have a small gumby that I've had for several years.

My...'horrible monstrosity', a 3 level computer cabinet thing I threw together when I decided that having a computer sitting on the rug was a bad thing. I've got two old computers and monitors (comps 2 and 3) sitting in/on/above it.

In front of that is my beloved dark red Fender P Bass and amp, and next to that is a 3 gallon bucket that serves as my trash can.

Next is my bookshelf, a 2 level thing I made back in shop class in high school. Stuffed full of books, they're even piled on top of it.

Next is my filing cabinet, most useful piece of furniture I ever bought. Before I bought that and sorted out my various papers involving my worldbuilding and story writing, the floor of my room was full of stacks and stacks of three ring binders) Sitting on top of the filing cabinet is a coffee can of 410 shotgun shells :p (I live in a rural area, it's necessary)

In the next corner are a couple large high-grade wooden shipping boxes my father brought home from work. I worked them over and made them good enough to bring inside the house, and I have lots of stuff there for my various hobbies. Stacked above these are cardboard boxes full of movies and videogames. Next is the dresser, full of clothes. My TV and DVD player are on top of this. In front of it, on top of another wooden box, are my game consoles. PS1, PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube currently occupy space there, while the older ones are inside the box.

Comp 4: My laptop, the one I use when I'm writing. In fact, writing is all I use it for. It sits on its own 'table' made up of two 5 gallon buckets stacked up.

Next is my 'magazine rack', currently full of three ring binders and national geographics from the '80s to the early '00s, which brings me back to the computer desk.

On the walls are:
large laminated World Map (outdated, but good enough as long as I remember that the USSR no longer exists)
Calender
A 15 year old poster showing every country's flag. Can be quite useful at times.
A very nice Japanese dragon wall tapestry, which my grandfather brought back a few decades ago while in the navy.
My two bows, with a homemade quiver containing about a dozen arrows, only a few of which still have feathers...I haven't been able to find a glue that works well enough to hold them in place.

Dartboard, with no darts but lots of holes.
A giant ~7' wall tapestry from Germany, a nice woodland scene with a bunch of deer.

And all of this is in a small 12x12 room :p Needless to say, it's extremely cluttered, almost claustrophobic when the door is closed, even though I know exactly where everything is. I really need to get a bigger place.
 
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thethinker42

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I write in my living room.

Government-issue POS red sofa, government issue POS coffee table on which I rest my feet, and usually some sort of beverage in my omnipresent Guinness glass (which sits on a really cool laser-engraved wooden coaster that my mom made for me, which sits on a government-issue POS end table between my Foo Dog and my ShiShi dogs.). (We live in base housing, so our furniture is gov't issue)

The decor is pretty light right now because we just moved in, but at the moment if I look up from my laptop, I can see a Klingon sword, my grandfather's dress uniform sword, a few framed artistic nude photos (that I took), some paintings, my framed "Walk The Line" poster, our various video game systems that I will not allow myself to play until my next WIP is done, and random boxes that we haven't unpacked yet.

Yeah. That's my badass workspace. Word.
 

moderan

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mmm, clutter. I love a cluttered workspace. Mine is a combination recording studio/textile workshop/home office stuffed to the rafters with three computers on two desks and a tv table, three 6 foot by 4 foot bookshelves, one large white resin table, seven guitars and basses, three amps, miles of cables and wires, microphones hung on hooks on the wall, yarn (processed and unprocessed) in and out of boxes on every available surface. There are guitar stompboxes on the floor, piles of books everywhere there aren't hanks or skeins or balls of yarn, two printers, a scanner, two tabletop fans, and a partridge in a pear tree, all overseen by a six-foot cardboard gray alien and an oversize cuddly Cthulhu who occupies pride of place atop my writing desk.
The room is the standard 12X12..redpbass, you'd love my tobacco sunburst jazz 24:)
 

The Lonely One

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Several, I suppose:

Old writing space: dining room table at the house we were renting, laptop, dog biting, running around, etc. Don't know how I did it.

OR

if the weather was nice, back patio; no nextdoor neighbors, get a nice breeze going and a St. Pauli Girl on the patio table. Aaahhh.... good reading place, too. I miss that house :(

New writing space: sitting on the bed, laptop; dirty clothes in the hamper (beautiful view of it from here). X-mas lights on the window, white walls, etc. A form rejection letter sitting next to me that came in today. Maybe I should move that...

OR

office, desktop; University of South Florida football schedule scotch-taped to the wall above the monitor (University of Michigan and Michigan State schedules are over so I took them down). The Martian Chronicles and The Lie that Tells a Truth next to the keyboard. Some jotted novel notes and a horrible scene drawing under the keyboard, folded. A small guitar amp I keep kicking by accident under the desk.

OR

Laptop, the park by the bridge or some other public locale (this is rare, I work better in a quiet place, screw Starbucks and all the weird smelly hippies there...)

NOTE: no smelly hippies were harmed in the writing of this post.
 

Polenth

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Messy. I have quite a few My Little Ponies dotted around, including a giant cuddly one. And currently a magic wand, because of NaNoWriMo. The only clear place is my mat (when it's not filled with a tea mug).

Overall my space detracts from writing rather than enhancing it though. It's too loud (in the same room as the family television) and I hate sitting on chairs. I'd be somewhere quieter if I could. And have the computer placed so I could sit on the floor to use it. But it's what I've got, so I do the best I can.
 

Sunshine13

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Depends on where I can be. I don't actually have a desk anymore, gave it up for my kids playroom. My husband has one, so I'll use it from time to time but not usually to write. I write in the dining room, or in the local coffee shop. And it gets pretty messy in the dining room if I don't clean it every few days.
 

KikiteNeko

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My laptop is in my bed, where I also keep a bunch of stuffed anime critters and my cats (the cats are not stuffed). Also, the blankets are generally covered with books that I pick up and skim when I need some motivation and inspiration. Also there's a bamboo plant.
 

ghsb12

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Dining table, laptop, monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers emitting music that suits my mood. And lots of folded A4 paper for notes. When I'm writing, I'll scrabble through these and make a huge mess.
 

Gogoplata712

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My writing space is in my bedroom. I have a desk that has on it my laptop, a few water bottles, and a stack of magazines and books.
 
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