At the moment, however, I'm in need of a computer desk and I just might make that my Christmas present to myself. All of my writing since the move has been done on a laptop sitting on the couch in the living room - which usually means the TV is on and conversations are happening around me (that is when everyone else in the house isn't also in their own worlds on the Internet).
I'm looking forward to the solitude of my office. One of the things I've been running through is making it more writer-friendly. So, I've come up a with a few things I need to purchase for myself:
- White Board: I use one at work for network related items all the time. I realize I would benefit by having one at home for writing ideas or plot lines.
- More Research Books: A recent post on Magical Words by David B. Coe entitled A Holiday Buying Guide for Writers made me realize how pitiful my own writing research collection is.
- External Hard Disk Space: I have more crudely hand drawn maps to scan, as well as other drawings (uniforms, ships, etc.) that exist only as originals at the moment.
So, I'll be treating myself to one of the research books each pay period. I have a lot of words I plan to write in 2009 and the goal is not just quantity but steadily increasing quality.
And besides improving my knowledge - and by extension my stories by diving into the research books - there are so many Fantasy books I've still to read. And if I give in and take the Urban Fantasy plunge - which even now I suspect I will - the reading list will just keep growing. I need to read more than I have been.
And while all of the above will take up far more of my time, I'm not too worried about that. It just means watching less TV at the time shows I like are on. We have the DVR so I will actually save time by being able to skip passed the commercials.
It is doable. Doing NaNoWriMo this year showed me that.
