Romance Author Desk Tour: Home
Once upon there was a writer who wrote wherever she could...
When I first started writing, a desk never entered my mind. Inspired by
and her newsletter series about desks and the creative minds who work there, I started to look at my own space the past few weeks, especially as a lot of things start to change and evolve this year in my life.I was around thirteen when I started writing. And when I say writing, I mean writing.
I’d been reading all the popular YA fiction of the time. There were vampires, werewolves, and dystopian futures where the love interests just understood how I felt or wanted to feel at the time. Powerful and desperately in love (such a romantic). I dreamed I could live in a world like that where I was important and special and had a story of my own I was excited to be in.
But I didn’t. So, I started writing.
My first story was something of a reincarnation romance. I wrote it on the family laptop for hours at a time in the evening. The Lenovo was heavy and burnt creases into my legs from how hot the machine breathed. I typed away while sitting on my childhood daybed with a polka dot comforter.
My fingers found a home on the keyboard.
When I wasn’t typing in bed by lamplight, I was writing in the margins of math worksheets or eventually in a journal that traveled wherever I did.
I wrote banter and dialogue. The characters haunted me throughout the school day and so it never bothered me that I never had a set time or a set place to write.
I just was writing. And alongside reading, that is all I wanted to do.
But over the years, my room in my childhood home changed. The daybed became a traditional platform. My room itself moved down the hall even though I figured I wouldn’t be there very long to enjoy the change of scenery (you know until 2020 reared its head). I still wrote in my bed or my window seat surrounded by the many other stories I collected to read like treasures.
It wasn’t until about three years ago that I got a desk once and for all. It was after I wrote my first published romance novel, The Strings That Hold Us Together. With a desk, I felt professional and though it wasn’t the desk of my dreams (I picked it up last minute from Target), I felt like I at last had my workspace where my writing would be taken seriously.
Even if it was only myself I had to convince.
So, let’s talk about it. Before life gives us another chance. Another desk and another workspace perhaps to tell my stories.
Where is my desk?
My desk is in my room set against the wall near my bookshelves. I’m still in search of one day having a good desk space that doesn’t make me look like I am hiding in the shadows whenever on a video call.
For now, though, my favorite part of my desk space is that it is by the window, and a light breeze comes in often at night while I type away, illuminated by a sage green glass lamp.
Where did you find your desk?
As someone whose furniture is mainly from old antique stores or second-hand, it is odd for me to say it, but my desk currently was hastily purchased from Target. It looked nice and did the job I needed when I was attempting to write and work remotely at home back in 2021 for a little while until it became a full-time writing desk for me again.
It does what it needs to do. I like the look of it, though I’ll likely upgrade to something with a little more character one day in the future (but not for a while I have a feeling).
What do you have on your desk at all times?
I have a lot of pens on my desk alongside my laptop and two pictures from a wedding last fall. I didn’t know where to put them, but I kind of like that they are there for now.
When writing, I have my tea container of pens, my lamp, and usually my water bottle on my desk. I like to keep the space pretty clutter-free if I can. Oh! And sometimes I have my writing notebook open if I have something pre-handwritten or outlined that I want to work on.
Is there anything you’d change about your space?
I wish I used my desk a little more! I get in spurts of when I write at my desk vs. other places. I know that you probably shouldn’t write in bed, especially as someone who occasionally has trouble getting into a relaxed nighttime routine, but sometimes that is just where I end up.
In the future, I would love to have a more dedicated workspace when I write. I think then I would be more likely to decorate it and make it feel more like my creative and comfortable space to write with mood boards or little extras.
Will that eventually be in an office or just a cozy corner with all my books surrounding me? I’d take either.
I have a feeling though that will be part of the future “full-time author” sort of update.