IWSG December: A glance around my office

If you're not familiar with 

the Insecure Writers Support 

Group, check it out here. 

Wow, it's December? Last month flew by in a stream of hosting NaNoWriMo events, book selling events, writing 50,000 words of a YA fantasy novel, and proofing the ARC of my next book. So yes, it was a busy month! I'd say this month is less busy, and technically it is, but it still feels jam-packed. I'm looking forward to January - the month where I (usually) catch my breath.                                                                                                                         I'll be doing a cover reveal here for Trust: Book 1 of The Narvan, in a few days, but until then...                                                                                                                                                                Let's focus on this month's IWSG question: What are five objects we can find in your writing space?

New for NaNoWriMo this November, is my jaunty pirate hat. This year we had an inner-regional word war to help our writers stay motivated. I headed, you guessed it, the pirates. The best part of this hat, was the giant fluffy feather than got in everyone's faces anytime I was nearby. Now it decorates my desk display of books that aren't quite put away between events, since I've had one about every other weekend for a while now.

And if you're wondering, my pirate team sunk our opponents, the ninjas! It was a good battle, made even better by being wordily victorious.

Last year I headed the villain team and also won. I'm sensing I might belong to the dark side.

Just over my head, where I do most of my writing from my comfy chair, is this cabinet. Inside are so many treasures, like a stack of  packages of blank notecards I got for a penny each at a office store sale years ago and seem to be saving for...something. It also houses some of my super old writing that we don't talk about or look at but also can't throw away, a large stash of cassettes from the late 80s and early 90s that I also refuse to part with, and various craft supplies.

One of those crafts is book art, in which I, in one of my many spurts of random craftiness a few years ago, decided to try. I needed something to fill the open spaces in my cabinet and this seemed like the perfect solution. It also mostly hides all the stuff spilling off the shelves behind them. Functional and nice to look at.

Have you ever watched Farscape? No? What's wrong with you? It's one of my favorite shows of the old sci-fi channel, back before they went wonky with a y and focused on stuff like Sharknado. Just. No.

While I love all the characters of that show, Scorpius was my favorite, in all his incarnations. He was a very interesting antagonist and well-rounded. Creepy at times, evil a lot, but also with a compelling backstory. And then we get into the imaginary versions of him. Good times. Now I'm going to have the urge to watch that series again. Darn it, I don't have time for that!

I did a post five years ago on how to make these book page roses. I'd made a bunch of them as an auction item for a NaNo fundraiser. They turned out really nice so I'd also made some for myself. Because I totally need more crafty things hanging around in my writing space to distract me. Remember that time you made roses, they whisper to me. That was fun, what else could you make? You've got a bunch of pages still sitting around in a book somewhere. You should do something with them. Come on.

Evil, taunting craft things. What, you can't hear them too?

Stop and hear the roses wasn't a thing? I swear it was.

One of my long-time favorite crafty things to do is paint. I painted this gargoyle twenty-some years ago. Egads, has it really been that long? (See, lose track of years just as quickly as months.)

So, as it turns out, one of the worst places a distractedly crafty person  can ever work is a craft store. I did. For several years. Oh and several glorious years they were, except for dealing with people (both customers and co-workers), it was heavenly!

You know where you should never put me? In charge of ordering the ceramics and telling me I can paint the display pieces and keep them later. But we had a great selection of  gargoyles, fairies, castles, wizards, and pretty much anything fantasy-oriented in the catalogue.  There are days I miss that job, but the store closed and it was onward to other things for me.