Creative Space - Sean Williams

[martinlivings]

Creative Space
Sean Williams

The picture is in soft focus, which is how I mostly see the space while I'm working in it--through peripheral vision. The desk used to belong to my grandfather, Harry Schiller, who always wanted to be a writer but ended up being a farmer instead (and discovered the massive Cowell Jade Province in South Australia, but that's another story). Above my monitor is a stunning work by Art Vanderbyl that's been in my family ever since it was painted in 1976. The wooden desk and the painting's muted tones balance the harsh, high-tech light I work under every day, and gives my study a warm ambience--or so it feels to me, anyway. The room is dark, but it's actually brighter than I would normally keep it. I like to mushroom all day with the stereo (positioned directly behind the chair) burbling innocuously away in the background, no matter what the weather is like outside.

I doubt there's much here that isn't in most other writers' studies: the dictionaries and other reference works within easy reach; the photos of family and loved ones; the disorderly pile of books waiting to be read; bragshelf and awards to the very right of the picture; even a token dumbbell or two, indicating an awareness of one's sedentary lifestyle, even if that doesn't extend to actually exercising very often. But there are unique details: the sonic screwdriver Danny Oz sent me a couple of years ago; a beautiful green box I've kept from the wedding present Deb Biancotti gave Amanda and I earlier this year; a wooden "drum" given to me by the Writers on the Edge writing group in thanks for taking a retreat with them in 2005; the carved wooden lizard given to my father when he was working for with communities in the North Territory when we lived up there in the 1970s. Touches like these -- along with the desk, the painting, and others you can't see -- make the space mine, and make the words written here all that more
special to me.

Sean Williams

Sean Williams is the author of over sixty published short stories and twenty-two novels, including the Books of the Cataclysm and The Resurrected Man. His work has been published around the world in numerous languages, on-line, and in spoken word editions. His current projects include Astropolis, a gothic-noir gender-bending space opera trilogy, and The Broken Land, a dark fantasy series for children. He is also writing the novelisation of the forthcoming Star Wars computer game, The Force Unleashed.

http://www.seanwilliams.com

Comments

[halspacejock.livejournal.com]

I bet it's always that messy, too ;-)

[ashamel.livejournal.com]

That's not a mess...

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

... this is a mess:

http://stephen-dedman.livejournal.com/148569.html#cutid1

[martinlivings.livejournal.com]

Oi! No previews! :)

[hkneale.livejournal.com]

That ain't a mess! As soon as I can find my camera (it's around here somewhere) and the cable to upload them to (honest, it's plugged into my computer, or maybe Her Ladyship's) I'll show you true creative mess!

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

That's about as tidy as it ever gets. You should see the mounds of crap just out of shot. :-)

[halspacejock.livejournal.com]

Well, I did have my suspicions, because it looks like something out of an IKEA catalogue. A tidy desk is as far from reality as the fiction we write on it ;-)

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

Apologies, btw, for the typo: "dumbbell or too" should, of course, be "dumbbell or two". Whoops.

[martinlivings.livejournal.com]

Oh crap, I should have picked that up, sorry mate! Fixed now!

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

The mistake was originally mine, so you've got nothing to apologise for! :-)