IWSG: Five Things in My Writing Space

Welcome to the final Insecure Writer's Support Group for 2018. You can learn more about the IWSG on their website, Facebook, and Twitter. Our hosts this month are J.H. Moncrieff, Tonja Drecker, Patsy Collins, and Chrys Fey. Our question for this month is "What are five objects we'd find in your writing space?"

The easiest way to answer this question would be to take a picture of my home office, but it's too cluttered at the moment to show anyone. Instead, I'll describe a few things that I think will be most interesting or reveal my character.

1. "Let There Be Write." I have a two-page printout of a short story called "Let There Be Write," by Nancy Fulda taped to my desk, right above my laptop. It was published online in Strange Horizons in 2005. It's a parody of the Creation story from Genesis, detailing how a writer creates a story. The twist ending is something that will ring true for many writers, including me. I'm not sure if posting a picture of the printout would violate copyright, so I won't include one.


2. A small statue of an Egyptian scribe that I bought in the British Museum. We visited London in 2006 for our one-year anniversary. The leftover British money from that vacation rests on the scribe's lap as an offering. Perhaps I need to increase my donation to advance my writing career.

3. Christmas Trooper--My son made me a Limited Edition Christmas Trooper by coloring one of his Lego Stormtroopers red and green with markers. I keep it in the original packaging, on the same shelf as the scribe.

4. An acrylic dish with a sunflower on the bottom. I needed a little dish for my tea strainer, and this one cost only a dollar or so. I'm a big tea drinker and go though multiple cups of green, loose-leaf tea daily.

5. Reference books. I still keep paper copies of a dictionary, a thesaurus, grammar/style guides, and baby name books on my desk. However, I almost never use them anymore, since my first instinct is to look things up online.

As you can see from the pictures, there's lots more I could list, but I'll stop here. Feel free to share details about your writing space below.

May the Fourth/Force Be With You! (Guess My Costume)

Today the rest of the world catches up to our house, as we have Star Wars Day every day. (That's just how you roll when you have an almost-eight-year-old boy in the house.) Here are a few of the many ways we celebrate a galaxy far, far away....

Twinned Universes isn't the only combination of Shakespeare and science fiction out there. Both trilogies have been rewritten in iambic pentameter by Ian Doescher. (I've only read the Original Trilogy, so I don't know if they've managed to redeem some of the lines from the prequel. I'm waiting for Tragedy of the Sith's Revenge to come out to see if they do a box set of the prequel trilogy.) They make great audiobooks too.

Jeffrey Brown creates comic collections such as Darth Vader and Son, Vader's Little Princess, Good Night Darth Vader, and his latest, Darth Vader and Friends. I've been reading his Jedi Academy graphic novel series with Alex and am looking forward to the final book, which is coming out this summer.

Lego sets. Boy, do we have Lego sets. Here are a couple pictures from the collection, but this isn't complete. Alex has so many Lego Star Wars sets we're planning to turn the playroom into a display area. (Hey, we need some place to put the Death Star when he gets it.) We already have some shelving units picked out, but they're not in stock. We also plan to frame reprints of the movie posters from the Original Trilogy and hang them on the walls.

Here are Alex and me in our Jedi costumes. (My husband has one as well.) Alex will be enrolling in the Galactic Academy (costuming for kids) after his birthday. He could join now, but this way he'll be put in the right age group immediately. My husband would also like us to join the 501st Legion for Imperial Star Wars costumers--not that I have time or skill to make a costume. Eugene isn't sure yet if he would like to be an Imperial officer or a fighter pilot. I know what I would dress up as. It's a little like a Jedi, but you won't be able to see my face. Can you guess what it is? Keep in mind I'm a little short for a stormtrooper. Come back Wednesday when I reveal the answer. Better yet, leave your guess and e-mail in the comments. The first person to guess correctly wins an eBook from me!