Saturday 21 June 2008

My desk


This is where I work. I'm sitting at the kitchen tabel writing this. I'll talk you through what's on the desk.
2 books on punctuation and writing style (Strunk and White's Elements of Style and the Penguin Guide to Punctuation).
The concise Oxford Dictionary and the Collins Thesaurus. Two books on the Knights Templar, one book on the history of the Middle East, one book on Islam. One book on Witchcraft and one on Alchemy. Guide to the Temple Church. My Sony mp3. My mobile. Another guide to Temple Church. The annotated ms from Puffin (the work in progress). The Puffin notes. My biographies on the Templars, Billi, and Michael (key protagonists). My small leather bound 'writer's' notebook (I never leave home without it). Various pens, including a red one. A map of Middle and Inner Temple which, err, fell off the wall when I visited it. On the floor just off the bottom left of the photo is an encyclopedia, a book of quotations, and the Morte d'Arthur, the one with the Beardsley artwork. I hope to eventually allow my family to eat at this table, but not quite yet.

5 comments:

Jon M said...

Cor! Looks like a centre of industry and creation! How did you get the serious photo onto your profile? I can't work that one out at all!

Jon M said...

It's okay, I've just worked it out...it's only taken me a year!

Anonymous said...

do you face the wall? or do you face outwards towards the rest of the kitchen?

Jude said...

food? who needs food when you have books to write?!!

SarwatC said...

My diet during the last few weeks of insane rewriting:

Breakfast- large bar of Dairy Milk and can of coke. I usually have Fruit and Nut so it counts as one of my 'five a day'. Diabetes is for wimps.

Lunch- take a break and head down to the nearby Wimpy. Fried onions are vegatables, aren't they? Quaterpounder, chips and more coke.

Afternoon snack- chocolate biscuits and glass of milk (somethings never change).

Dinner- If its me cooking, a curry. If it's my wife, something healthy.

Evening snack -more chocolate biscuits and another glass of milk.

During periods of extreme stress I may consume huge slabs of Angel Cake (from Tesco, not Summerfield, it doesn't taste as good).

Candy, I have my back to everyone on the first draft, but face everyone with rewrites.
Jon, great photo!