My last writing prompt I said I was working on descriptions. When I write narratively, I often have a tendency to skim to the action and the dialogue which leaves my scenes feeling ungrounded in first drafts. As that’s something I’m trying to get better with, I’m using an exercise I heard on the Writing Excuses podcast from Mary Robinette Kowal. I’m going to set a timer and describe the room around me. I’m doing an hour again so if you’re really interested in my office setup, buckle in!
The room I’m in is on the front of our house. The windows behind me, barely covered with thin turquoise curtains (I’m going to replace them someday) aren’t thick enough to block the sound of traffic. We live on the main thoroughfare in our town so traffic is a constant. We’re also two blocks from one of the big fire stations so we also have sirens going by once or twice a day usually. I’ve stopped really noticing.
The curtains also don’t always block the afternoon sun; if I’m on my computer in the evening, I sometimes have to tug the nearby curtain towards me so that the glare doesn’t get on my screen. I’m not complaining- well, I am, but honestly I’m glad our house has such big windows everywhere. Though it does sometimes make it inconvenient to put things by walls.
There are two computers in this room, a small-ish room that was originally a bedroom. We moved the kids to the bigger room with their toys, freeing this room up to be a schoolroom. Well, that didn’t really work out, and we eventually evacuated the school stuff as well and moved the parents’ desks in here so our room would be a bedroom and we could work or play on computers without disturbing sleep schedules or what have you.
My desk is fairly small, probably about a 3 feet wide by 2 feet deep. I’m not converting that to metric, sorry. It’s usually covered in stuff, though I’m making an effort to keep it more clear. Often a water bottle or water cup beside my left hand next to my keyboard; keyboard in center; right corner of the desk is dedicated to my drawing pad. It’s a gift from a friend. When I told her I was interested in getting in to digital art, she kindly shipped me an old drawing tablet she no longer used, as she mostly used one with a screen these days. Its black surface is hatchmarked with hundreds of thousands of sketches and lines, but you can only see this in direct light. Just above the tablet and the keyboard is my mouse. An awkward place to have it, yes, but this ended up being most comfortable for where I habitually sit. It’s on a mousepad of Hoid/Wit from the Brandon Sanderson Cosmere. If you’re not familiar with him, he’s a reoccuring character with enigmatic goals who frequently gives pep talks to the main characters but also doesn’t fully seem trustworthy. This mousepad depicts him with an instrument across his back gesturing invitingly towards a swirl of space and light.
The back zone of my desk has three main features. The first is a storage basket/wire shelf that contains cash for kids’ allowances, scissors, headphones, and other bric-a-brac. I’ve also got a picture there that I drew of a small dragon twining itself into my hoard of dice. I’m pretty pleased with it as my first and only foray into drawing on a photo. The dragon is hardly photorealistic but the general effect is effective enough. It snores gently, twin trails of smoke coming from its nostrils as it rests its head on the largest die in my collection, a d20 with a liquid core full of golden glitter. When I need something to do with my hands during a session, spinning that die around and watching the swirls of glitter rise and fall back down is fascinating and soothing. (Usually my hands are busy though; I’ve designated myself note-taker to help keep my attention focused and my pretty awful memory engaged.) Currently on top of the wire shelf is a Switch game (Mario Party Superstars) that I was trying to play with a friend except my switch doesn’t like the cartridge, a few pennies, a yarn needle and a white measuring tape, and a golden metal fidget spinner with five arms. It spins remarkably smoothly and with a pleasing hum, though I feel like it’s gotten a bit rougher since I got it.
About now I got insistently interrupted by three small children pretending to be cats and as I went to pause my timer, realized I never set it. Alas. I’ve put on 40 minutes now and we’ll proceed from this point.
Beside the wire shelves are my organizing cups. The back has several gel pens for color-coordinating notes, then a smaller cup for crochet hooks, then a cup full of pens and mostly pencils, then two glass bowls stacked on top of each other. Nothing’s in the bottom cup at present, though I feel it might be a good place for something I want to keep where I can find it but don’t need to access it often. The top bowl is designated for one purpose- that’s where my keys belong. Always here or in my pocket. This is important because my brilliant airhead brain forgets almost instantly when I put something down. This set of keys was lost for months not too long ago. The really sad part? Their home used to be on top of the wire shelves but they’d slipped off the edge and gotten lost in the jungle that used to be on my desk before the move to the office. I checked there at least 3 times too. So now they have one and only one home. The keys themselves I find fairly aesthetically pleasing. They’re on a purple carabiner with only 2 keys attached, my home key and my car key. I read somewhere that too many keys on a key ring can drag them down when in your car key slot which can be bad for it, so I tried to pare down. Other keys and so forth are kept separate and again, only one home and always returned there. I do have keychains though- there’s a small galaxy trapped in a glass sphere (my husband thinks I stole it from Orion in the Men in Black movie), a cluster of pearly butterflies, and a geometric panda. I did not have many key rings for a while but I do occasionally like pretty things.
I should note that my version of “pretty” and “I want to have” is often slightly limited. They have to exist in a fairly specific overlap. I like elegant and simple, usually; while I can aesthetically appreciate a lot of decorations and ornamentation, things that I would use or have is in a narrower zone. That’s probably true of many people, I suppose. Things that we may think are pretty or fun elsewhere don’t really correlate to what we’d want in our own home. I could write a whole essay on this though so I’ll leave that topic alone.
Next to my cups is my laptop. This is a new acquisition; I got it for Christmas. I’ve been liking the idea of a laptop that’s set aside for writing and not much else for a while so when I’m feeling particularly distractable I can work on something that narrows the available distractions. This one’s even better because it has a touchscreen for drawing. My husband got it for Christmas because he wanted to give me that portable working area. I have only a few things on it- Krita for drawing, a word processor, Campfire which is a writing organization software that I still feel like I’m “trying out” to see if it works for me, and Zoom and Discord for my writing group. It has a pen that works with it, which is near the pen that works for my drawing tablet, and the two do not work for each other. I’ve tried out of curiosity.
Above all of this float the actual computer monitors. (Below the desk resides my computer tower.) The wonder of a monitor arm for freeing up desk space is truly incredible. I have two monitors, one of those things my husband said I would like while I resisted saying I didn’t see how it would do me any good and then, when I switched, I never wanted to switch back. Two monitors is delightful. He has 3. I’m only mildly jealous. When I’m writing, I can keep research or rough drafts or notes on another screen. Or I can split each in half since each screen is fairly big and have lots of stuff open at once. When I’m online role-playing, I can keep Roll20 open on the big screen with plenty of real estate to see rolls, players, and map while on the side screen I’ve got Discord open for players who prefer text conversation (or so I can send reaction gifs) and my character sheet not taking up valuable map real estate. When I had to play on a different screen or got cut down to one screen for a while it was just awful. First world problems, I know. Or when I’m working on something that doesn’t take a lot of brain space, I can open music or a show on the other monitor. Gotta stay stimulated! At all times! With multiple senses!
This still feels like I’m not going super into detail on the description of things. Very well. Let’s take things one item at a time. The wire shelf. It’s black, about a foot tall, and comes to just an inch or two under my monitors. I can’t put anything tall on top of it or it’ll block my screen. The top is a mesh while the bottom is a basket of vertical bars about an inch and a half apart. I could measure given this tape measurer is here. The basket uses the same black mesh on the bottom. It’s a pretty wide basket and fairly spacious. In the back is a bank envelope with probably ten or twelve dollars in cash, small one dollar bills peeking up, beside a roll of nickels and a roll of quarters. Fabulous wealth I’m sure. There’s an old black coin pouch shrugging down next to it, the zipper in the front busted, the inside jingling with mostly pennies. The tape measurer just disappeared off the top of my desk to inquisitive three-year-old hands and it no longer holds its perfect coil; I’ll get it back in a tangle eventually I’m sure.
The basket also has a black controller that probably needs to charge, a breath mint tin that holds a secret purpose, two scissors- the blue pair that is losing its sharpness but still cuts paper well, and the black-and-white gingham handled pair for craft needs while at my desk. In the front is a business card, white text on black, waiting for me to use it. It was a gift from an Etsy purchase, probably of dice, with three columns of text to help you call someone a goatish, fly-bitten clodpole or any other permutation of Shakespearean insults you care to cast about. Also within, a uv flashlight, a pin for inflating a yoga ball or peanut (not sure which, hope they’re both in there) and a chainmail hackysack bought from a friend in college. It has a weight that feels good and tossing it between your hands feels satisfying and jingles pleasantly.
The keyboard is at a good distance from the wire shelves that lets me perch things between the top row of keys and the keyboard. Little reminders to myself on index cards, an envelope from my parents containing a vinyl patch so we can fix the air mattress that started leaking when they slept on it (which had been used once since their last visit a year and a half ago, when they bought us the air mattress to replace the one that started leaking when they slept on it), my phone- when I have my laptop open and my phone up, there are a good four screens facing me. It feels mildly overkill at that point.
The drawing tablet is currently not exposed; it’s hiding under the instructions for crocheting an octopus hat. My oldest daughter likes wearing a hat at all available opportunities and pitched in money to buy the octopus pattern. I’ve made two now and am progressing on a third so all my daughters can be be-cephalopod-ed in their favorite colors. On top of that is the crochet hook I’ve been using, a gift from a friend. It’s purple aluminum but the handle is resin filled with glitter and tiny gaming dice.
The desk itself- it’s wooden, but that fake wood made from leftover shavings that have pressed together to form new wood. There’s wood-grain sticker across the top but it’s peeling off on the frontpiece. It used to have a hutch with drawers on top of it but those were left behind a move ago as they didn’t leave much space for monitor/s.
The timer has gone off now, hope you enjoyed, here are some relevant pictures for your trouble.
Intellectual Property of Elizabeth Doman
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