Ephemera & Tales

Over at CoffeeTimeRomance, one of the recent open questions was

If you could have your dream "writing cave" what would it look like?

This is my answer.

My ideal writing cave is snug and thick walled, so it's cool in summer and warm in winter, and so I can ply my music at my volume without upsetting anyone. There's a lamp on my desk, shedding a golden pool of light, and a string of white fairy lights wrapped in spirals over the ceiling for light.  The walls are a patchwork of inspirational pictures and clippings and postcards, everywhere where there aren't book shelves. 

The desk is a big dining room table, sticking out into the cave, with room for all the books and notebooks I want at arm's reach for the project of the day, and space for both my computer, and to write long hand.  There are various nooks and cranies for my cat to snooze in, when she's not trying to stand on my keyboard or sit on my paper, and a battered sofa covered in fleece throws so I can curl up in comfort when I need to change my perspective. 

There's a big pot of flowers on a shelf above the desk - right now I'm craving daffodils and narcissi - that magically gets refreshed with new flowers,  and a never ending supply of mugs of tea (tea-tea in the day, and spiced herbal teas at night) and fruit in the fruit bowl.

There's also a pause button by the entrance, so I can pause the outside world until I'm ready to come out of my cave and interact with it again.

(

I'm currently in the (objectively good but subjectively torturous) place where I've got something 99% finished and I now I just have to find it a title ...

I know folk who *start* with a title, (and right now I'm all kinds of envious of them!), and others for whom it's as organic and intrinsic as the character's names, and still others, like me, who tend to be left thinking "can I get away with calling it 'the one where the spiders attack and then there's kissing in caves'?" as a deadline rushes towards them.

How does that work for you?

/ nosy

In other news: synecdochic just posted more writing meta, this time on evoking consistent mood - as always, while the examples may be fanfic, the advice more than stands for original, and many of these posts come closer to explaining How things Work For Me than any published writing guide I've ever come across.