I couldn’t think what the heck to write about this morning.
I’ve been working on my office. Over the past year my office somehow morphed from My Office to The Room That I Toss Stuff In To Sort Later. You know what happens after a year of that? You can barely wedge your way through the door because it’s blocked with enough junk to give a fire marshal heart palpitations. As you grope for the light switch, you knock books, DVDS, file folders and two bowls and three glasses off the nearby bookshelf to the floor. You squeeze at last through the door, and cobwebs brush against your face…
But see, it had to be done because a) we are getting perilously close to tax time, and all my tax receipts are somewhere In There, and b) working in your bedroom is a really bad idea. Unless your name is Sugar.
I’ve developed the bad habit of writing on my laptop in bed. Very Marcel Proust, I know, but really bad for my back (even with the yoga), and really bad for the…er…bedroom vibe. By which I mean, I began to find it impossible to turn off. And I’m talking about my laptop, not the kinds of things that would be of interest to Mr. Thrilling.
Even when I switched off the laptop, my brain would keep running over dialog, making mental notes (Hummer…make it buttercup yellow!), poking holes in the plot, etc.
So I started analyzing why I didn’t like to work in my office. I realized that–well, obviously the fact that it was in chaos was a little discouraging–but the problem had to do with my chair (very uncomfortable) and the fact that there wasn’t a TV in there.
Yes, a TV.
When I write I like crime or mystery movies playing in the background. Music is too distracting for me; I can’t write and listen to music. Silence is…too quiet. So I like some innocuous mental wallpaper like old episodes of Perry Mason or wacky old movies from the thirties and forties.
I’m not recommending this as a Writers Must Do, I’m just saying it works for me, and I realized that I needed to get myself a little TV and a little VCR/DVD player for the office. How hard was that? Not hard at all as it turned out.
And then I needed to get a really good office chair. Something comfortable enough to sit and read and work on my laptop, but also good for sitting at the armoire and working there. I never really thought seriously about my office furniture before, and I think it’s one of those things that turns out to be worth time and attention. My old chair didn’t work because the back was too short and the chair itself was hard as hell, arms, seat, etc. It was pretty, but that’s not the most important thing when you’re sitting there for ten hours and you can no longer feel your lower extremities.
I ended up with this very comfortable vinyl-covered Queen Ann chair and a nice big leather ottoman. Very comfortable, but not so comfortable that I want to slump over and go to sleep–which was always a danger in the bedroom when things weren’t going well.
Then all I had to do was sort through the stacks and boxes of paper that had accumulated through the year. It was incredible the stuff I found–cards I meant to give Mr. Thrilling, contracts, books I’d meant to review, magazines, catalogs…twenty two lists of Things To Do. No wonder I hadn’t got anything done!
So I began to sort. It went well, surprisingly well, considering that the waist-high drifts of paper. I became ambitious. I began to sort the file cabinet. I began to reorganize my research notes and filed contracts by publishers and correspondance in matching folders…yeah, it got way out of hand.
No one is paying me to organize Lake District magazines by month and year. Not directly anyway.
So anyway, now I have a totally organized and functional–and comfortable–office, and my husband says he’s afraid he’ll never see me again. I have to say, it is easier to be productive when all the tools are right.
So where do you write? Do you have an official work space or are you one of those curl up on the couch and scribble on a clipboard types (I was one of those for many, many years, and that was preferable to the bedroom, frankly). Are you a file it as you go or file it when you can no longer find anything? And what’s your preferable background music?
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Oh my, the idea of organizing my office is stunning. But, I don’t write there–when the weather is nice, I sit out on my front porch, in one of my comfy old adirondack chairs, coffee at hand, a stack of legal pads nearby. When it’s too cold for that, I snuggle under a quilt on the sofa in my living room with a fire in the fireplace making me even more cozy. (The coffee and legal pads are a constant in either locale). No music. No tv. Just the sound of my dog snoring at my feet. I write in longhand; my first edit is a few hours later when I haul out the laptop to enter it there.
But, I should still organize the office. Or at least put away all the Christmas wrapping paper remnants that are cluttering it up now.
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Ahhhh……Diana! Your office sounds like mine.
When it’s organized, I write in there. But I also like to go to Starbucks, where I’m shamed into being productive. And then there’s the couch and the bed and….I guess I just like to move around.
Trouble with the office is that the deeper I get into a book, the less housework I do, which leads to me heaping stuff in my office so that my husband doesn’t have to trip over it when he comes home. It’s pretty bad right now and not looking to get better anytime soon. Sometimes I think cleansing by fire is the only hope, but I’m pretty sure bonfires aren’t allowed in our subdivision.
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A messy office is the sign of a creative mind. At least that’s what I tell myself whenever I look at the heaps of assorted crap on my desks, shoved into corners and stuffed into the closet.
The biggest culprit? Books. I bought a scanner and software to keep track of all of them the other week. 197 in my office alone. The only rooms with fewer are the bedroom and the bathroom. I’m afraid to look at the Wall O’ Bookshelves in the den. That’s like 25 feet of books.
I stopped writing in my office a while ago. I just find it easier when I have some bustle around me. So it’s usually off to Starbucks where I can pretend to write a screenplay to fit in. They’ll tear you apart in this town otherwise.
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We recently moved to a much smaller house and one of the reasons we picked this one was the office. It’s not large, but it does have a fireplace and windows that look out at the yard.
Yes, I have stacks of papers all around, a 1941 bus and streetcar map of Washington tacked to the bulletin board and poster tubes of art I haven’t framed yet, which is OK because I have no more wall space.
I keep two guitars in there, one amp, and an M1 rifle over the mantle.
I love my office.
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Judy, I must admit your adirondacks and quilt sound awfully cozy!
I used to write longhand too; it was excruciating trying to switch to writing direct to my computer, but once I got a laptop, I was able to make the jump. Now I love it. But I do occasionally miss the leisurely and thoughtful pace of long-hand.
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Tasha, so many writers seem to gravitate to Starbucks. I think I’m self-conscious about staring into space while sitting in public. It seems like an awful lot of creative process requires me looking like I’ve knocked upside the head.
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Ah, Stephen, in my feverish reorganization state I did reorganize all the office bookshelves as well. Now I can see the Dell mapbacks, but I can’t actually REACH them, whereas the reference books I need are inches from my hand.
The best thing about being a writer is that so many of the books we buy are tax deductible.
Okay, ONE of the best things.
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Oh, David, I think I love your office too. I’d be afraid to keep firearms in there, though, since the temptation to use them when I’m interrupted or things aren’t going well might be too strong. 
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A fireplace! That’s what I’m missing! The chimney does snake up outside the window of my attic office, though, so maybe it wouldn’t be too costly to punch a hole in and make a new hearth?
Since I’ve finished the last ms, I’ve had a hard time making myself go up to the office. I’ve been editing another ms that has about three weeks work left to go, and I printed it all and I’ve been working longhand in the living room. Needless to say, papers that usually go sliding off my office desk (my dad’s old dining room table) are now piled and sliding off the coffee table. I think I’ll make the move back up there as a Valentine’s Day present to Michael.
But a fireplace? Hmm…
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I’m afraid to write at a Starbucks (or anywhere else in public) not because of the staring into space (which I do a lot of, too), but more because of my predilection for talking to my characters and practicing dialogue out loud. Oh, and the fact that I like to write in my jammies (the front porch is quite private!)
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You’ve heard of houses that have the Red Room or the Blue Room. Well, we’ve got the Pink Room. And it’s my office.
It used to be a nursery and I’m not painting anything until I know how long we’ll be here. Before we moved, I had an office that looked out over our front yard. I could gaze out at the trees and sky while I was thinking. I used to write in that office a lot. The Pink Room, not so much. Now I do most of my writing on my laptop at the island in the kitchen.
So, Diana, how long did all your organizing take? I’ve dug out my receipts for the tax return, but the Pink Room could use a considerable amount of tidying up. Am I looking at days? Months?
by Sara
on February 12th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
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I commandeered the playroom about a year ago (they’ve still got the basement and their rooms). Gave it a splash of the writing beach cottage I envisioned as a kid (before I knew what authors made) and I LOVE it! I write the last third of all my books in this room. The first two-thirds are written at a Borders where I can avoid the internet and be inspired by life’s noises.
I am very organized. Occasionally a few things will pile up on my writing desk, but not for long. I like organization and my office is the only place I seem to have control over.
I have a big three-drawer filing cabinet that has everything filed neatly (slightly anal, yes). I’ve noticed over the past year that this room–the fact that it’s mine–makes me happy. But with the same paint and my office furniture, I can replicate it elsewhere and capture the same mood.
by Laura
on February 12th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
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I know, Heidi, I’m brooding over that fireplace too. Not that I could squeeze another thing into that office. My new chair and ottoman take up an lot of prime real estate.
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Judy, I feel a blog about sleepwear coming on! How many of us write in our pajamas–I mean, those of us who don’t wander over to Starbucks. Although maybe some of us wear our PJs in public, who knows. We’re writers. We’re expected to be eccentric.
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Sara, maybe you should try writing chick lit. I think your pink room might work well.
How long to Operation Organization last? Phase I, the essential phase, only took about eight hours. But then the manic phase, also called Phase II, lasted two entire days working from morning till I couldn’t see straight at night. But, man! My files are a thing of beauty. Unfortunately, they’re so beautiful I’m kind of afraid to use them.
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Laura, I’m in awe of your organizational skills. Listeners, this woman (meaning, Laura, not me) usually has her blog for the week in by Sunday night–and it’s not due till Tuesday!
My office is…well…you’ll laugh at the theme: adventurer/explorer. I have a lot of pseudo Egyptian arifacts, and hat boxes, my skull (well, not MY skull), magazines from the 1930s, Bombay bowler, armoire, etc. And now, of course, my beautiful chair and ottoman. I KNOW, I’M A NUT!!!
I was going to get Mr. Thrilling to paint “hieroglyphics” around the room as a border, but I’m not sure we’ll stay in the house long enough to justify that labor.
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