Step Into My Writer's Office...Someday



We all have those dreams—you know, the ones that the details of are so clear in our heads that we swear some day—it’ll be reality! I've found that the more I define these dreams and actually give myself visual cues on a corkboard, the more they seem to happen. My biggest dream revolves around my writer's office.

The writer's office is a dream location, but it's where it sits in the middle of that ignites my creative mind.

I’m living in a 1000 square foot cottage along the Shenandoah or perhaps near the coast of Oregon. A simple place, sunny, small, easy to care for, so I can concentrate on the outside…A huge sustainable organic garden, a cherry orchard, a pond to skinny dip in, a large labyrinth to walk in when I need to center myself. A few seats from amusement park rides left to rust and making interesting places to sit in a Tilt-A-Whirl seat or a Scrambler bench, creepy cemetery sculptures spread around the gardens that I created with my own hands…

And in the heart of it… a barn

My dream writer’s office for horror is in a barn with rusted sharp nasty farm implements hanging overhead as I work, dangling by clanking rusted chains. The floor is hard earth with a large pentacle imprinted in it where the desk sits atop it. There’s a loft where a huge array of creepy old baby dolls sit and stare down at me. There is a life-sized Bigfoot statue lurking in a dark corner with red eyes that glow. A human-sized clown doll is poised in a chair as if having a conversation with me. One of those wonderful gypsy fortune teller booths from carnivals is in the barn near the entrance. The walls have erotic and spooky murals marking my heritage of Vikings and Highlanders that I’ve painted over time when I was trying to break through writer’s block. On Friday nights, I have artists come and we sit around with a model posing nude as we work on our skills of drawing the human body, followed by a merry little party by torchlight near the pond. I have a stereo system and a projector in the barn so that I can project movies or scary slideshows onto the walls for a bit of background and inspiration as I write. I tend to travel to places I write about, so I gather lots of photos of the most creepy aspects of the location and have them flashing on the walls to put me in the setting. The upper loft is strewn with hay and a blanket so I can lay down and study the sky through a large skylight above.

Now, I dare you to give voice and description to your dreams…

Comments

  1. I transcribe my dreams every day. It can be a challenge to even explain in words some of the things that go on :O

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  2. Hey, your mind can't be any weirder than mine. I think I take the cake on that one. I do have a vivid imagination and a romantic nature, so a little meditation in my dream work office and I'm pleasantly renewed. Making it a reality--that's the fun part.

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  3. You had me right along side you, until the creepy baby dolls part.....

    *shudders*

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  4. Hey Deep Thinker;
    If the place doesn't creep me out, I won't be able to write horror. Glad you liked most of it. You really won't like what I have planned at my house for Halloween--baby dolls and mannequins take it over!

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  5. Virginia Wolf said that every woman writer needs a room of her own.... Your room will definately inspire dark fiction once you create it.

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  6. Jessica;
    Right now, my "room" is basically my handy laptop. Whereever I can go and find a hidden dark spot, I write. I often times hang out near my fake graveyard out back at night and write away by lantern light. I do admit it would be wonderful to be near some woods and just soak up the pastoral scenes for some wonderful horror settings. Every time I make a trip east, I always bring the laptop, walk out into the woods and plop down and type away while I can describe the smells, sounds, feels, and imagine the creatures that would come out from their hiding spaces like ancient beings...

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  7. Your home sounds beautiful. So peaceful and serene. Something I could really live in.
    Mary

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  8. Mary;
    Well, I do pretty good with the one I'm in now, but the setting is all wrong. I really need my woods, after all, I'm autumnforest. I have a pretty good ability to make wherever I am pretty fun to be. In the middle of a 120-degree summer, I can make a cold dark place where we can watch scary movies and I have my fake graveyard to give me atmosphere for writing. It works for now. Still, I don't give up the dreams. It gives me something to work towards. I've never had my own space, so it would be so nice to just do what I want and not have to worry about others living in it and not liking having clowns staring at them and dolls peering down. hee hee

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  9. Sounds spine-tingling! That would be the perfect place to write horror stories!

    My own dream has always revolved around the house I someday want to have. I want a house built right into the earth with sky lights in the top and big glass walls on the front and back. It will have geothermal heating and the sitting room will be filled with plants. I want a big garden or flowers and vegetables surrounding it, with a grass field for the children to play and a fire pit area so we can camp in our own backyard!

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