Office Tour!

My writing office is my happy place.
Come along and take a peek inside...

Welcome to this brief photo tour of my laid-back, whimsical creative space! C'mon in and make yourself at home. Here we go...

First of all, here's the real brains of the operation! "Mr." Bingley is always nearby to advise when my books give me trouble. *g* You can always find him either under my desk, on the comfy armchair in the corner, or snuggled down his writing bed with favorite toys close enough to nibble.

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Here's where I write my books! All set up nice and ergonomically correct, thanks to the resident ex-chiropractor, my husband. *g* This is actually a teen desk because I'm only 5'2". Big fancy desks are just too much for me. My laptop is a Lenova Yoga, btw. Love it. Really reliable. (Oh great now I've done it.) Also, lots of pure filtered water on hand. Gotta hydrate during those long writing sessions! (Zebra print office chair makes me laugh. Wild at heart!) :P

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This is my pretty maple worktable with a straight-on view of my big whiteboards where I plot out my scenes.  I put a whimsical sheer curtain up over it that I can pull across the plot grid to hide it from myself, because if I look at it too much, I can get overwhelmed. One scene at a time! 

Everything in my office has meaning. The knickknacks on my file cabinets there include the precious letter Y that my little nephew Leo gave me for my birthday one year. He had a set of paper machier letters because he was learning his alphabet at the time, but he had decided that Y was his favorite letter -- and he gave it to his Aunt Gael! *adorbs* Looking at it always reminds me to ask "Why?" I also have a Disney snow-globe with Tinkerbell inside; a Mary, Untangler of Knots figurine; a pair of bird-watching field-glasses; and a beautiful chunk of soothing purple amethyst. Plus dry erase markers for my whiteboards.

As for the table itself, I love having this extra space to sprawl out on with my stuff when I'm doing research or plotting or whatever. It's also good for the daily business meetings or brainstorming sessions with E...

Speak of the devil! "Honey, sorry to interrupt, but..." LOL. It's always a ray of sunshine to see Eric's smiling face pop in the door. My go-to guy for brainstorming, figuring out plot snarls, as well as my first reader, and...well, general Handler-of-All-Things. Love this guy!! xoxo

"Hey, G, take a break! Wanna go out for lunch?"

​Moving on, here is my Dictation Station! You can see my Yeti Blue microphone in the middle (and my Regency ladies poster. Aren't they sweet?). I dictate the first draft of my books nowadays, either out walking in the park with a mobile headset, or strolling around my office with this great mic connected by a long wire to my laptop (kind of like a lounge singer, lol.) Dragon Naturally Speaking ROCKS! It's great to be able to have a step in the writing process that gets me up and away from sitting at the computer.

Let's see, what else... The golden heart thingy on the shelf is one of the book awards I've won over the years, and the mess in the lower right corner (sorry!) is actually the materials I'm assembling to create a family photo gallery wall in my hallway downstairs. It's a temporary mess, promise! ;)

​This is Flight Control, where I keep my planner (big fan of washi tape, as you can see), binders and materials for my current projects. On the wall is my writing calendar, where I track how many words I got each day and then reward myself accordingly with star stickers like a kindergartner. It's pretty motivational, funnily enough. (Whatever works!) Also my gryphon and my plastic sword, because...reasons. LOL.

Do I really need to explain? *g* OK, I bought the sword for Halloween one year and didn't want to pack it away afterward. It was too fun to have on hand. Plus, with all of those swashbuckling fights my heroes tend to get into, you'd be surprised how often it comes in handy for figuring out fight choreography! Hey, don't mess with me, man. I'm a plasic-sword samurai.

As for the gryphon, well, duh, everybody needs one of those. (At least if you're writing an all-ages fantasy series called The Gryphon Chronicles, you do! Then it's a must-have.)

The boxes contain way, way, way too many author copies of my backlist that I've set aside for giveaways for my subscribers. (Hint: Subscribe to my newsletter if you want a chance to win one!)

This is the inspiring hilltop view out my office window. (Thus the bird-watching glasses.) I like to look at it a lot when I'm zoning out, gathering my thoughts for the next writing sprint. I'm not sure how many miles this really is that you can see here, but it seems like a LOT. A long, long distance of rolling green Pennsylvania hills and countryside. The window is south-facing, so my office is always bright and sunny in the morning. Well, except on moody-sky days like this. Or when it's snowing. But those kinds of days are very pretty, too. And wow, what a view in the autumn, with all the leaves turning colors! I feel very lucky to work in this space.

Finally, here's a bit of whimsy overhead. (I think we're getting a theme here!) My mom and little niece, Teagan, Leo's big sister, made these adorable paper lanterns as decorations for my birthday celebration in November.

Since they just happened to fit the light & happy color scheme and playful feel of my office, up they went. They dance in the breeze when the windows are open. They make me happy. :)

The reason I keep such a light, easygoing feel in my office is that it really helps minimize stress. I've learned over the years that the emotion of stress is the opposite of the psychological state of creativity. The flow state, where you're writing out of love, not out of fear or deadline pressure.

I want maximum creativity when I'm storytelling, so I avoid anything that feels too businessy, too "official," too overly-serious literary, too formal or scholarly.

I don't want to look at my past books while I'm writing because I don't want to rest on my laurels. I don't want to see other people's books, because then I'll want to go read instead of write, lol. I don't want to see my shelves and shelves of research books (those are down in my library) because then I'll start stressing over whether I've checked every detail enough, etc. I only keep the materials on hand that I'm using for my work-in-progress. I travel light and focus on keeping things organized. And having fun in the process! Because if it's fun for me writing it, it has a better chance of being fun for people to read, too. So that's my philosophy on why my writing environment is the way it is. Bottom line:

Work is play.

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Well, that's about it! Hope you've enjoyed this peek behind the curtain at my office and my everyday life as a "working" (playing?) writer. *g* On that note, I'd better get back to the book.

​Thanks for visiting!