ASK THE AUTHOR: Laura Tolomei, 'What's On YOUR Desk Wednesday?' (WOYDW)

Click to reveal in full detail, what is on Laura's desk!

What’s on my desk?

by Laura Tolomei

our

Author in the Spotlight

Besides the computer, there isn’t much on my desk except for my inseparable bottle of mineral water—yeah, I drink a lot, so I need one by my side all the times—and a box of tissues. You won’t find many pens on my desk for I rarely write by hand. Everything’s processed through the computer, the only reliable depositary of my thoughts, particularly since it’s the only one I can read without problems.

Laura Tolmei

You may or may not know—but if you read some of my interviews you probably do—I have an eyesight problem and have to use special glasses simply to read. So I use like the light next to the desk, which I can regulate to make it come as close to me as I need, and a really comfortable chair in which to recline if I feel like it. In fact, I usually put my feet up, next to the keyboard, and lie back whenever I’m reading.

Underneath Laura's Desk!

Underneath the computer screen, there’s the favorite piece of the desk, at least the one my cats adore. They can sit there and claw me, if they’re hungry, or run their wet noses on my legs if they feel in need of pampering. To be honest, they prefer the first scenario, because I usually get up and feed them after they’ve slashed my legs a couple of time, but there are rare times of pure love that goes on beneath the desk.

Cip and Ciop!

Speaking of cats, I’ve suffered the loss of three of my five cats this summer—a real sad time for me, particularly since they were of different ages and the causes are still unknown at least for two of them—but when I returned from vacation, I took two new entries, Cip and Ciop, who just love to play around under my desk. To make you appreciate them, I’ll post the picture of me holding them while sitting on my desk chair. Oh, and this doesn’t help my writing time any. In fact, it’s a big distraction, but I couldn’t do without it!

On top part of the desk, you’ll see the sub-woofer of the audio equipment plugged into my PC. Like I said often, I love listening to music either writing or reading, and since I spend most of my day here at this desk, it’s equipped to play back as loud as I want all the music I tell it to. And that goes from rock to pop, dance, funky, jazz, electronic, fusion, hip hop, Brazilian, techno, new wave, new age, lounge, gothic, just about everything except hard rock and heavy metal. I also don’t listen to a lot of Italian music because writing in English, it confuses me to follow the words of the song in another language I know so well, therefore I avoid it.

And one last bit of info about my writing space and who I share it with is the picture of the Egyptian poufs, which are located right behind my desk. Those are my cat’s favorite places to be while I write, mostly sleeping when they’re not playing among them. And if I’m having a bit of a rut in my writing, I turn to them—don’t even have to get up—and start fondling them until inspiration hits me. And it’s always a great one!

Beautiful Lynx Poster :)

On the left side of the desk…that’s not my space, I swear! Cluttered up by comic books, papers and God knows what else, it’s my husband’s way of keeping his things. Just by looking at that small portion of the picture, you can tell he kind of puts everything where he wants, no proper place for anything, but strangely finds the thing he needs even in that chaos. And he’s part of my writing, too, for he sits on the far end of the room with his own computer—there, can you see him, the one sitting under my beautiful lynx poster? —and we talk if there’s something to comment or I ask him for advice or other times, he reads something I’ve written that doesn’t convince me and we discuss how to fix it or make it better. Like I said, he’s part of it and a very important one at that!

One messy (but lovely) husband!

Well, I think that’s about all I can tell you of my desk and of my writing habits. Everything considered, it’s a homey little place, creative for sure, but also where I have a lot of fun with my music, my writing, my web surfing and mostly my animals, husband included LOL

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September 2010

Author in the Spotlight Laura Tolomei