From SRP author Tracy Cooper-Posey:
Waaaay back in 2011, I did a guest post on Alternative Read, where I revealed my desk and what is on it and around it. It was a super-popular post, and I linked to it from my blog, here.
That was what my desk looked like then. That was April 2011, and I had been 100% indie for less than a month.
If you check the photos out carefully, you’ll spot a land-line phone on my desk (that’s gone now), and only one monitor. Also the CPU was sitting on my desk, instead of beside it.
I’m still writing at that desk. But things look a bit different now.
In particular, the mournful note in the original post, asking where are Merry, Pippin and Strider? struck me as ironic, as Merry and Pippin have both gone now (along with Sam, who was a ball python). Only Strider is left, and you’ve met him before. But hold on a moment.
Here’s how my desk looks today;
This is the whole desk area. Not terribly glamorous, is it? A staged and pristine influencer
True story: I asked MidJourney to create images of a “fantasy author’s office that would inspire story-writing” and what MJ came up with was just as cluttered and chaotic as mine (and just as dusty):
MJ’s version of an “inspiring author’s office”
Going back to my office;
his is a closer shot of the desk itself. (With Strider sniffing around, wondering what I’m doing — I just noticed him in the bottom corner!)
My monitors have super-prosaic stands: Photocopy paper. Which is another irony, because we never print anything anymore, so I’ve had the same stack of printer paper under the monitors for years. My son Terry got so sick of seeing them, that he bought me a proper double-monitor stand that means I can remove the legs. I just haven’t got around to installing it. (Time, time time!!)
Note under the main monitor are my two purple happy Buddhas. They’re supposed to bring luck and fortune.
Just to the left of them are my Argonath (“Pillars of Kings”) from the Lord of the Rings movie.
n closer detail.
The glass picture frame holds a picture of my son and daughter taken in the bush outside of Perth, Western Australia, only a few weeks before we moved to Canada, in 1996. Both kids are taller than me now. 🙂
Also among the keepsakes is this statuette of Cerridwen, that my daughter gave to me. Ceridwen is the Celtic goddess and muse of creatives.
I wrote a litany that calls to Cerridwen that I sometimes cite when I’m about to start writing for the day:
O Divine Cerridwen
Goddess protector of poets,
Sustain for me
This song of the various-minded man.
Make the tale live for us
In all its many bearings,
O Muse.
It’s based upon a much more ancient prayer to gods and muses — and I can’t remember which one. 🙂
The image on the right shows my teeny tiny Han Solo figure, under a bell jar.
My son hand painted him and gave him to me for Christmas one year.
Han Solo was one of the major inspirations that got me into writing fiction — particularly romance novels. 🙂
Here he is in detail.
Below is a jar holding about a pound of beach sand and sea shells that I picked up off the beach the last time I was in Australia. On the right inside the jar is a cuttlefish bone.
Sitting on top of the jar, just inside the frame of the photo, are my Tarot cards. Just like the original post, I have Tarot cards still. But I’ve moved on from the original Ryder-Waite-Smith deck. When you first start working with Tarot cards, you’re encouraged to “try on” different decks, to see which ones appeal to you, or speak to you.
I hunted around for many years, looking for a deck that “clicked” with me. I felt very comfortable with the Ryder-Waite-Smith deck (the traditional deck) that you can see in the photos from 2011.
Then I found the Druid Craft Tarot deck, and fell in love. Just look at these two cards:
The classic image of Excalibur being returned to the Lady of the Lake….
Cerridwen again! 🙂 And through the door is Glastonbury Tor…reputedly, Avalon.
Can you see why I grabbed this deck and hung onto it? 🙂
And I would be remiss to not include the other tool/desk decoration/distraction that sometimes invades my desk:
Strider got in front of the camera as I was taking photos, almost demanding I take one of him. Then he wouldn’t stay still while I tried to take it! This is the best shot of all of them, and it’s still a bit blurry.
My second desk.
I would be remiss if I didn’t include my second desk. It’s where I’m writing this post at the moment:
As you likely know already, Multiple Myeloma ate away four of my vertebrae before they figured out I had cancer (it also destroyed nine ribs). So for the longest time, I lived in this chair. I even slept in it, when it hurt too much to lie down.
The vertebrae have probably fused back together again now (it’s been a while since they were x-rayed), although I’m also four inches shorter than I used to be, too. Despite the spine no longer being fragile, the muscles still have to learn how to deal with my altered structure, and how to work again (I’ve been on the low end of active for years now). So even sitting at a desk with a high-tech chair leaves my back screaming after a few hours, and I have to head upstairs to the recliner to work.
The recliner stops the pain dead. It can take a few minutes, but the total support the recliner gives me takes away the pain and lets me avoid painkillers.
The recliner was only ever meant to be a temporary solution while I recovered (hence the extension cords and the mobile trolley). But that temporary phase is now into year…four.
For the longest time, this was the only place I could work. But now, bit by bit, I’m able to stay sitting at the desk for longer periods.
So there you go. That’s what my desk looks like, fourteen years later. 🙂
Tracy Cooper-Posey
SRP Author
