Outer Space

In his fascinating On Writing, Stephen King talks about his writing space.

Currently, he has an attic room with space for kids and grandkids, sofas and chairs, and a desk tucked into a corner.

When he started his journey as a published novelist, after selling Carrie, he didn't want that family-friendly space. He wanted a big slab of a desk he could sit behind and Create. Looking over his massive desk, he'd feel like the captain of a spaceship, surveying his own creative universe. A real author would have a desk like that, not the laundry closet in a trailer he wrote in up to that point.

I'm lucky. I have a whole room devoted to nothing except books and writing (and the rare overnight visitor). What I don't have is a desk.

I don't want a slab of a desk. For one thing, I don't have room for a slab of a desk and I'm notoriously messy, so I'd end up with a slab of wood covered in stacks of books and papers. No, as a junior testing-the-waters novelist, I'll settle for a folding card table or game table, which I'm planning to purchase shortly.

After two completed novels, a third that's three-quarters done, and a fourth that has a proposal due in a few months, I believe I'm ready to move past my current setup, which consists of a laptop-on-a-TV-tray. Pathetic, isn't it?