Sunday, November 30, 2008

Typecast: A desk of one's own


Pauletti Papers

This typecast was written with my Hermes 3000.
Posted by Strikethru
Labels: , , ,

11 comments:

Duffy Moon said...

I have a desk in the loft of my home that has a hand-me-down PC on it, and I generally have to shove the keyboard and mouse out of the way and set up my typewriter there. Or I do the same at the desk in my bedroom. Or sometimes I set up shop on the kitchen table. I have been known to sit on the sofa with a (smallish) typewriter on my lap, and did that quite a bit this November.

Right now I don't plan on letting anyone read my NaNoWriMo Novel. I'm going to spend some time on a re-write, and then I'll likely let my family read it. My idea was to write a story for my children this year, so I plan to make good on that.

December 1, 2008 6:14 AM
mpclemens said...

I'm sure you've seen my NaNo writing area for this year complete with helpful toddler. What you're not seeing is the sofa that this is tucked behind, nor the semi-permeable barrier of a sewing desk and a large Rubbermaid bin to keep said toddler away from Daddy's Toys. It worked... most of the time, until she'd crawl over or past and retrieve the rubber "bunny" (snail) from the table, or leave me a mysterious line of mmm,,,,,mmm... on my page that I would be obligated to count. Having this setup wasn't ideal when the rest of the family was awake: the baby usually goes down for a nap on that sofa, bounced on someone's lap, and the kids found it a perfect perch to stick their noses over Kilroy-style and pester me about trivialities such as breakfast and a ride to school. Harumph. Actual location wasn't the issue, it was the contiguous block of uninterrupted time that hit me the most, and my poor wife became the NaNo widow for most of the month. I did try to limit my typing to mornings and lunch hours, though, except for weekends and the break at the end when I'd sneak off for a page or two.

If the main writing-room was unavailable, you could usually find me in another part of the house, with an old cafeteria tray and Gomez, the trusty SM3 perched upon my lap, banging away until my feet went numb.

--

I've been struggling with the reading issue. It's hard to ignore the sheer physicality of a typed manuscript, so I'll surely make an edit pass on this one, if only to correct the many gaffes and mmm...mmm,,, that appear on its pages. My wife will get a first read, sometime soon. Perhaps a deadline would be useful here, too? I can pledge to hand it over to her by such-and-such a date, and she'll be instructed appropriately, like "you're reading for plot, not grammar, spelling, or character names." I certainly need to re-work it into something linear, though, as I have pages and paragraphs inserted pell-mell that extend or replace earlier pages and sections. I did away with one character entirely after going through all the trouble to set him up, get the characters to his house, etc. etc.. That sort of thing needs to go before anyone sees it.


After my wife, my son (who this was written for) and then, after another rewrite? a few fellow NaNo'ing co-workers who expressed interest. Maybe. I'm still struggling with that notion.

December 1, 2008 6:44 AM
rad-tastic said...

I would love to have my own little desk. I do, made of wood, bought at Ikea. Lol! But I don't do any writing there because usually my sewing machine is in he way. Now it isn't, but I have a laptop on my bed, and I prefer my bed. Maybe one day I'll have a space...when have more than a 16 x 12 room filled with crap.

My word verification is 'weeing' That is thus amazing. For reals.

December 1, 2008 7:57 AM
Monda said...

I lost my floor-to-ceiling bookshelved office with the stunning french desk near the window when my daughter and grandson moved in with me. There's still a french desk and a window now, but not as much elbow room. These things happen. You carve out another space and scribble on.

My grandson also assisted me in this year's NaNo by banging mightily on the bedroom door and screaming "May-May!"

Since I wrote the whole NaNo novel in pieces, the puzzle really should be reconstructed before I hand it over to an unsuspecting reader. I'll do both in December. Might as well.

I can't very well tell my students to write sh**ty first drafts unless I'm willing to slap one of my own in front of them, really. I think we'll all get together and read the worst parts of our NaNo's out loud. It could be fun.

December 1, 2008 10:29 AM
Mike Speegle said...

I actually have a small corner of bedroom that is dedicated to analog culture. See one badly assembled particle-board desk with a large pile of typewriters on it. Wedged in between you will find the odd cup of pencils and on the keyboard pullout? Paper.

The only major drawback is that the desk is adjacent the wall that I share with my son's room. So should I want to type at night, I need to go with the Quiet-Riter or take a portable downstairs to balance on my knees.

December 1, 2008 12:39 PM
mpclemens said...

I recall something in Stephen King's On Writing about desks and workspaces, too. It's been months and a NaNo since I read it, but something to the effect of: he finally got a Big Wood Desk and space and privacy... and blocked up. Had much better luck writing on an old desk balanced on his knees (and probably a dash of controlled substances, but there you go.)

You do need something solid under a typer -- I've seen the Dave and it does shout "flimsy" to me -- but I don't know about the writer's loft. It sounds too much like an Ideal to me, much like the Uninterrupted Time To Write.

Someone posted a batch of photos of writers-in-their-natural-habitat on the nanowrimo flickr group, my favorite so far is the one of George Plimpton since it shows just the same kind of chaos I surround myself with at work. At home, I no longer have a desk, just a kitchen table to perch the laptop, and an ugly forest green typing stand for the Royal. In a strange way, it works, though. As in, my brain is cluttered and random, and artificial surroundings would only upset it.

December 1, 2008 1:40 PM
Olivander said...

You may want to peruse the Writers' Rooms series at the Guardian. You'd be amazed at how "un-writerly" some of them are.

December 1, 2008 2:57 PM
Strikethru said...

Boy, did my typecast need an edit. Your replies are MUCH more entertaining. Esp. the bit about "May-May!"

Glad to hear that all of you are working from real-world writing spaces (as well as the authors in the article Olivander pointed out.) Ok, mpc, you've made a point. Perhaps this pipe dream is basically a flavor of Uninterrupted Time to Write. Back to my bag of excuses...

I have a nano novel I have been meaning to rewrite. Might be time to drag that sucker out now that my perfect writing desk stalling tactic has been deflated :-)

December 1, 2008 3:24 PM
Elizabeth H. said...

I have two desks in this house: one in my "office" which holds the computer, the printer, the scanner, a bunch of books, and a very pretty and generally cranky betta fish. I spend most of my time at this desk being distracted by the Internets and music and the betta fish strutting his stuff.

I have a second desk that contains Bernard-the-SG-3, bunches of paper, and almost nothing else. When I'm typing, I get a lot more done there.

But I did most of NaNo by hand, in a notebook, either on the table at my favoritest coffee joint in the whole wide universe (Mud Bay Coffee Roasters), or the table at work, or my very cluttered kitchen table at home. Or in bed, just before giving up for the night. Did a lot of writing with the book propped on my knee that way. So much for dedicated spaces.

I struggle a LOT with showing my writing to anyone. I mean...who do you show? My family will either tell me it's garbage (brothers in particular are good at this, I'd say) or pat me on the head and tell me I'm so smart and clever and no, they don't want to point out all the big boo-boos. Not to mention that I'd feel funny about revealing some parts of myself even to family. Know what I mean? Not that my stories have anything *bad* in them, but...I'd feel really weird about showing my brother stories where I, the author, am obviously in love with the main guy, or where I'm stealing characteristics and childhood stories from friends and relatives.

That goes double for the co-workers. And most of my co-workers and friends are not big readers. So...who does that leave? Random strangers at the book store?

I still have a ton of re-writing to do before any of this becomes an issue, of course. That goes for my other stories, too.

December 1, 2008 6:12 PM
typograph said...

I'd be happy just to have a sturdy typing stand and a place to put it, so I don't have to pack up my SM9 every time I'm finished.

December 1, 2008 6:42 PM
Teri said...

I have a desk, but think I am going to bring over an even larger one and ditch the small one. I'm trying to weed the furniture collection down to manageable size. I usually use the typewriters on the kitchen table, a big round oak one.

Didn't finish Nano this year. Well there's always next November. I've still got the story to work on and will complete the story I did last year too.

December 2, 2008 3:00 PM

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