It's nothing conscious to help me work. Around me right now I have a mini globe of the world, a statue of the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-Sen, a model based on the carvings on the Cambodian temple of Angkor Wat, a stack of notebooks and a framed photograph of the great English cricketer Andrew Flintoff. Analyse that!
Music, but no other distractions.
A flat-screen TV that I can see out of the corner of my left eye. It is tuned to a 24-hour news channel, and is usually mute, but I have trained myself to be alert to the crawling ticker on the bottom of the screen that announces 'BREAKING NEWS'. I do this for a very good reason. In 2001, I spent two weeks at and around the World Trade Center in New York researching locations for the opening scene of my second novel that would have described a terrorist attack. I was actually writing the scene when the TV showed the second plane hitting the Twin Towers - and I instantly knew that my carefully-researched but far-less appalling scenario was destined for the trash can. It's happened since, and again and again. In fact, I can't begin to count the number of times that my lurid imagination has created scenarios that have been overtaken and surpassed by real events.
I listen to Fox news on TV.
just my usual office equipment and pictures in reference to the subject matter
Actually I can write nearly anywhere controlled and non controlled, with or without coffee, but music helps
My work area looks like a tip. Currently, stacks of books on a nearby table, bills to pay and bank statements to file next to the computer. A tube of toothpaste taken out of a recently unpacked suitcase...
It's a small room with books on shelves on three walls, books to be shelved all over the floor, magazines on the floor next to my chair.
None of this helps to concentrate. But I don't know what to do with the stuff, so there it is.
Sweets and Chocolate...
Music. Classical mostly - Radio 3. If there's too much talking put on a CD. Jazz with no vocals.
Silence. I can't write if I'm distracted and my biggest distraction is noise. I'm not one of those authors who likes background music or the radio for company.
I do like the odd cuppa while I'm working and I've been known to partake in the occasional glass of Pinot Grigio if I'm having trouble making a scene work. I didn't say sex scene, did I?
Fear.
A notebook, rough paper, exercise book, several pens, the computer, the telephone, printer, some printed work, dictionaries, thesaurus, books, writing magazines, address books.
Geeky toys like cars, ships, action figures and lots of art work from artists I admire as well as many photographs particularly those in black and white.
Creative writing is a craft and crafts men do not always need to surround themselves with objects of visual interest in the work area to concentrate. I only need peace and quiet and my laptop along with that ‘ PHRASE OR WORD’ to create a poem or a story.
I like to be alone with music for the setting of the script. For revisements, I surround myself with my team. |
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