{"id":10142,"date":"2016-12-26T13:44:24","date_gmt":"2016-12-26T18:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=10142"},"modified":"2019-05-15T13:43:44","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T17:43:44","slug":"stephen-and-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=10142","title":{"rendered":"Stephen and me"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen King says, Don’t put your desk in the middle of the room<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I read his advice<\/a> about a week after I’d decided to re-arrange my office<\/a> and put the desk in the middle of the room.<\/p>\n

Stephen King also says, The one thing your writing space must have is a door that you are willing to close.<\/em><\/p>\n

My office has two doors – one to the deck, the other to Tom’s office – but there’s no door at\u00a0the stairwell, which is the main entry to the room.<\/p>\n

Stephen King says, Clear any distractions from the writing space. Close the blinds, don’t have a phone, nothing that will cause your attention to wander.<\/em><\/p>\n

My floor plan for my new office is to integrate my computer desk with all my artist pursuits, instead of separating them. It will be filled with potential distractions.<\/p>\n

There’s also a land line phone on the desk. And the new propane heater<\/a> will allow me to keep the window blinds open for the first time in 10 winters.<\/p>\n

So does my new office arrangement mean I am doomed as a writer?<\/p>\n

Well.\u00a0Stephen King also writes while listening to hard rock music, and he writes horror fiction. Both of which, for me, would be barriers to good writing.<\/p>\n

His\u00a0desk placement advice comes at the end of a section in which he describes being an alcoholic and drug addict for years. Also not me.<\/p>\n

For\u00a0six intoxicated\u00a0years, he had a huge oak desk that was plunk in the middle of the room. He wrote novels at that desk while trashed.<\/p>\n

After he got clean, he moved his desk to the corner and made it a family room, where he spends time with kids and wife. That’s the point.<\/p>\n

It starts like this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room.<\/p>\n

Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.
\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Despite the fact that I am now putting my desk in the middle of the room, I’m pretty sure I’ve\u00a0got the essence of what King is saying. I don’t think I’m in danger of making my life subservient to my art, though it’s a good thing to remember.<\/p>\n

Besides, my\u00a0desk\u00a0won’t be\u00a0in the middle of the room<\/em>, it’s the middle of the wall<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I learned decades ago to write in a noisy newsroom. I’ve written in the midst of many kinds of chaos and squalor, from Kabul to Cape Town.<\/p>\n

I reckon I can muster the focus to write in a beige-carpeted solo\u00a0office with a view of trees and mountains.<\/p>\n

This is why you shouldn’t\u00a0take writing advice too, mmmm,\u00a0literally<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Even Stephen King says that.<\/p>\n

Today’s penny is a 2000, the year that On Writing<\/em> was first published.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen King says, Don’t put your desk in the middle of the room. I read his advice about a week after I’d decided to re-arrange my office and put the desk in the middle of the room. Stephen King also says, The one thing your writing space must have is a door that you are … read more Stephen and me<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[318],"tags":[84,260,164,1219,1373,789,138,259],"class_list":["post-10142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-refraction","tag-84","tag-focus","tag-house","tag-office","tag-shelter","tag-space","tag-work","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10142"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10189,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10142\/revisions\/10189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}