A Place to Write

I'm not even going to try to take a picture of my desk as it is right now.  The one on the left is from a year and a half ago.  That's Jaxon, who, at the time, was the youngest of my grandkids.  He had a penchant for sitting on my desk...especially when I needed to be working.  He's three now and has moved to my lap...along with his little sister.

Like so many others, I've done my writing in many places.  Back when I lived on a farm in a 70-year-old house, I'd sit on the floor at the edge of the one floor furnace, a legal pad on my lap, a pencil in my hand.  In the winter, I'd have to straddle the grate or burn my legs, but it was the warmest spot in the house.  There was a  small porch that had been enclosed years before, and I claimed it as my office, but not in the winter, because the heat didn't reach there. 2X4s stretched along three of its walls near the ceiling, perfect for the hundreds of romance novels I'd been collecting.  There was no need to worry about gaining weight.  The computer I shared with my husband was upstairs.

After my divorce, three of my four daughters and I moved to a three-bedroom apartment.  Here's a snippet from an email I wrote to an online writers' group at that time.

I'm sitting on the floor of the utility room in our new apartment, keyboard in my lap. I don't have my desk moved yet, so all I have for company is a washer---which I've already put to good use.

That was the first of four moves in two years.  In that time, I also shared my mother's dining room with her and her computer after leaving the apartment, then in the next place we lived, I used the utility room again--and bought a new desk!  Over the past eight years in the current house, my office has been in two of the three bedrooms, thanks to changing family dynamics.  Now in the biggest of the three (a converted garage), I'm surrounded by all things writing, with no washing machines, no sharing a computer, no sharing computer space with someone.  The fish bowl in the above picture is gone, along with the fish, and the M&M container (to the left of the monitor) now sits atop the refrigerator where it's safe.  I'm no longer in front of the north window that oozes cold air in winter.

So why no picture?  I'm a multi-tasker, and my desk is currently at its worst. Desk clearing usually happens after finishing a book.  This time it didn't.  In addition to having just finished that book that will be out in September, I'm working on revisions for it, several websites, and there's another pile here that's for income tax.  The keyboard and monitor are the only things that I'm able to find without searching.  Still, I continue to have visions of the perfect writing office.  I have everything I need for that...except time.  Maybe someday...