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I finally know my new office enough to come up in the dark, and be typing this in the dark. Okay, except for the computer screen which is alight. But I know this room now. I have to admit that I missed my old office for awhile, and autumn is a wonderful time in my old room. There is a beautiful Sweet Gum outside the window. In the fall it glows yellow, and fills the room with golden light on sunny days. But when we got back from our working vacation I walked into my new office, and was so happy to see this space. I no longer remember which book I was in the middle of when I had to move offices, just that I hated moving in mid-stride. I think it was a Merry book. I think it was MISTRAL’S KISS, no. I did KISS in the new office. It was DANSE MACABRE that I was in the middle of, when we moved, so an Anita book. Or am I wrong again? I simply can’t remember. Either DANSE was in process, or it was the first book I completed over here. I know I began DANSE MACABRE over in the old office, because it was the book I was working on when MICAH interrupted me, and demanded to be written. I know that MICAH was written in the old office.
I know for certain that THE HARLEQUIN was begun and finished here in the new office. I’m almost certain that MISTRAL’S KISS was new office. A LICK OF FROST, the latest Merry book, was most definitely the new office. BLOOD NOIR, out next June, was new office. Whatever book I was in mid-stride with, whether DANSE MACABRE, or A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT. Four and half books, and the office is mine, at last.
It’s always been a beautiful room. An amazing space, in that architectural kind of way. It was the office of my dreams, but it wasn’t home. Home was the smaller room where I’d written for five years, or was it six? That room had been home in a way that no other office had been. I think, because for the first time, I was truly happy, truly content, in the other parts of my life. There had been years when my writing was one of the few things that was working in my life. Now, suddenly, the writing and my life were both good. It was a nice change.
But now, I think I’ve finally got the office the way I want it. The way that feels right, and let’s me work to the best of my ability. I have space to stretch out. I have light and air, and a view. The trees have been gorgeous this year from my windows.
I’ve written when the only space I had to call my own was part of a kitchen table. My first writing desk was a typewriter stand in my childhood bedroom. My first computer desk I shared with my first husband, who was a serious computer geek. I could only write on the computer when he wasn’t using it to play games. Admittedly, I preferred to work in the mornings and he preferred to play at night. So it wasn’t as big a conflict as it sounds, but it also wasn’t my computer, or my desk. I had to share, and so did he. The computer desk was against one wall in the dining room/kitchen of our tiny Los Angeles apartment. When we moved to St. Louis, then I got the second bedroom of our apartment as my writing room, though, we still had to share the computer. But I thought of it as my office.
Then the first house, and I got a room and a computer all my own. But it wasn’t quite right. I spent a lot of time at the kitchen table, or out at restaurants. I wrote most of OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY, Anita number nine, at the St. Louis Bread Company nearest that first house.
Then, many life changes later, Jon, Trinity, and I, moved into this house. I got to paint the room the color I wanted, and have, at long last, a room that I could do anything with, and no one would protest. I was finally with someone that I knew wouldn’t think I was weird no matter what I decided to do. Frankly, my offices are pretty mundane looking. One friend said, it was the emptiest work space he’d ever seen. I try to put in the office only things about the writing, the work, other wise I get distracted. It’s why one of my desks always faces a blank wall. Some days my concentration can’t be near a window or I’ll look out, and not inward, and thus, no writing gets done.
Then there was the great addition, and I finally could help design the office of my dreams. The only thing I might change, is I might have put a small balcony out side the office so I could put bird feeders outside my windows without risking life and limb to fill the feeders. But the outside of the room is so lovely, such nice lines, and I think the feeder area would have spoiled that. So, really, the only thing I’m missing from my dream is an ocean view. It’s St. Louis, MO, we’re a few million years late for the ocean here. A lake would have done, but, the original part of the house which we fell in love with is far from a lake. But the trees are lovely, and I can’t complain.
But, this lovely room, wasn’t mine, at first. Now, as I move around all my things in the dark, it is mine. An office, for me, is as personal as a bedroom. Just as you learn how your partner’s sleeping body feels in the dark as you slip in beside them, so you learn the nooks and crannies of a room. You learn the feel of the desks, the chairs, the shelves where the books pile high, and the nick-knacks sit. I know this room now. I can run my hands over it in the dark, put my body in any chair, navigate around the sharp corners, and find where I need to be, without turning on a light. I know this room in the dark, and maybe because of how personal I feel about my characters, how real they seem to me, I feel about this room almost like a lover. If that sounds weird, so be it. What I mean, by lover, is the physicality of this room makes me happy. Being in it, being near it, touching the things in it, make me feel safe and cared for, and gazing up at the walls of sticky notes sparks my imagination like staring into the eyes of someone who makes every inch of your skin react to just a glance. Let other writers do their cold out lines, and manipulate their characters like puppets. I write with nerves and emotion. I waste tears on my characters, and laughter, and smiles, and love.
Eventually, you have to love what you write, or hate it. I prefer love.