by Elizabeth Fedorko

Ha ha! I knew the title would get you reading. Well, where do you do it? Write. Where do you write? Now, don’t collapse on me. This is not going to be one of those articles on Feng Shuing your workspace. I think it has merits. My neighbor does Feng Shui, but when she stepped into my office she cursed like a Pittsburgh steel worker, shook her head and left. I guess my workspace was a little too “Western Hemisphere” for her. But it’s mine and I write there. I write there a lot because I like being there.

Do you have the same sanctuary? Mine is in the basement of our fifties contemporary, in the far corner, a little room all to myself. I have lots of bookshelves with research books, romances, other works of fiction, my vintage postcard collection, and toys. Don’t knock toys. I use a small collection of action figures as characters in my book when I need to know where they’re sitting at a table, poised for battle, or walking through the forest. John Smith (Disney) usually plays my hero, Sleeping Beauty (again Disney) is my heroine, and a chicken from Chicken Run or a purple Pokemon is my villain. My seven-year-old son takes these toys from time to time. He knows I have too much fun back here!

In my office I have a TV and VCR (currently vying for my own DVD), because I might want to put a travelogue tape on mute to get inspired for my setting. Ah, the rolling emerald hills and whispering pines . . . I also have a CD boombox, because as we all know music is great for motivation, mood, and dancing or singing badly when you get stuck in a scene. My current faves are the Proclaimer’s recent offering, the soundtrack from Plunkett and MacLeane, anything by Barenaked Ladies, and “The Best of Tom Jones” for those special moments, hmmm . . . sigh . . .

My walls are decorated with a patchwork of movie posters (Braveheart, Rob Roy, Trainspotting, and one large English subway poster of Joseph Fiennes from Elizabeth with the caption “lover” above his fetching countenance). I also have a huge Ordnance Survey map of Scotland behind my chair. My husband, bless him, doesn’t feel threatened (by Joseph, not the map of Scotland). He knows that I need these things to create, and one day after I’ve sold a million books (I’d really like to start with one book at this point), he hopes to retire early, do some salt water fishing, and eat White Castle burgers until he bursts.

Well, that’s the ten-cent tour. I asked my Board at our first meeting where they did it, and I received some interesting answers. One of them said she uses the couch in her living room. I’m still talking about writing here. She likes to know what’s going on in her house, and is not bothered by distractions, so she sits with her laptop and writes away on her big comfy couch. Another has a fairly new residence, and she claimed the front room with glass French doors on the first floor. The fact that she has yet to cover those doors with a fashionable fabric has not deterred her from plowing out the books, although she has become expert at ignoring the kids tapping on the glass. Another board member shares a corner of her basement with her husband. She has her book covers framed as proud inspiration on the wall over her computer. She writes between dryer cycles and late at night when she needs quiet for those special parts of her books requiring concentration, although I wonder if hubby is close at hand on the other side of the basement.

These examples are all fine and dandy, but they’re just that: examples. You need to be comfortable where you work. One of my favorite shows is The Learning Channel’s “Trading Spaces”. Two couples with an interior designer trade houses and redecorate a room in their neighbor’s house. If I walked into my house to find an orange living room (which must be a big deal with designers these days) I would cuss like a Pittsburgh steelworker. Most of the couples are polite and in their shocked state utter nothing more creative than an “oh, my Gawd!”. I want my workspace the way I like it, and that means it doesn’t have to be tasteful to be inspirational.

Your workspace is just that, your’s. Make it your Fortress of Solitude, your Cone of Silence, or your Studio 54. Whatever it takes to get you working. I would certainly hate to think that you’re depriving the reading world of that fantastic romance because you haven’t consulted the Feng Shui master.

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Elizabeth “Beth” Fedorko is a full time wife, mother and writer. She dreams of being the first romance writer on “Survivor.”