Our third creative space in the “A Room of My Own” series on Yearning for Wonderland is Daniel Swensen, aka @Surlymuse.
His blog should become your new favorite source for writing advice; it is written in a snarky yet informative manner.
1) Please describe your space, describing any features that make it extra special to you.
This is my workspace, where I do both my freelance work and my writing. I use Ubuntu Linux as my operating system. My favorite software applications for work are Zim, Clementine, FocusWriter, and Write or Die. I have my Rory’s Story Cubes on the shelf below the right monitor. The Rubik’s Cubes are there to mix up and then solve when I need to clear my brain. Behind the monitors are several small boxes with paper clips, push pins, etc. The secondary desk on the right is usually piled high with my “to-read” books.
2) What is your favorite/most inspiring object in this room?
The picture of my wife (top shelf, second from left, right next to the Star Wars picture). She inspires me daily.
3) What rituals do you go thru when you want to write in this space?
I take my vitamins, which I keep on the shelf below the left monitor. I fire up some music, either with Pandora or the Clementine music player. I have a number of playlists, each catering to a certain mood or genre. Currently, my “blogging” music is heavy on The Glitch Mob and Pretty Lights.
The rest of my digital writing rituals can be found here: http://surlymuse.com/a-digital-room-of-ones-own/
4) Any other details you would like to share about your special room.
Over the years, all the drawers in my desk have broken. The bottom left drawer inexplicably locked shut and has never opened again. The middle drawer fell out one day and broke my toe. The top left drawer has become wobbly and unstable. That’s why everything’s on the surface of the desk.
Also, buried behind the stuff on the top shelf is the “Perseverance” Demotivator poster (http://www.despair.com/perseverance.html), which I wrote (and got paid for). Still one of my favorite writing “jobs” ever.
Thanks to Daniel for sharing his Room with us. Want to share your Room? Email me at annabbps AT gmail.com with a photo and answer the above questions.
Keep an eye on this space for more writers/artists and their inspirational spaces!
See the spaces of other creatives in “A Room of My Own”!
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Didn’t you see my invisible ink ghost comment?! I hear they’re all the rage now!! I love the NaNo poster!! And the broken drawers crack me up because I’m always overloading my drawers (wow, that sounds wrong, huh?!) and having to ask my son to fix them and then listening to him give me the estimated weight limit of said drawer in his best stern carpenter’s voice!! 🙂
That’s exactly what happened to me with the middle drawer. I overloaded it till it just gave up the ghost. Mea culpa!
This is going to sound really dumb, but that is a really great chair 😉
Write or Die scares me…I guess that’s the point 🙂
It is! The chair was a gift from a very nice friend who knew how much time I spent in my office and thought I should be comfortable. 😀
I will refrain from making any comments about you trying to build the Death Star in your study, with all those monitors. 😀 What strikes me as funny about this post is not so much your writing space, but that I can hear your writing “voice” as you describe it.
Write on, m’friend!! 🙂
The sad truth is, there are days I wish for a third monitor. Sometimes I put my laptop on the desk so I have another means of looking things up….