Shtum Book Tour – What’s My Desk Like? By Jem Lester

I think it’s part of my own writers prevarication technique. First, it was ‘I haven’t got a decent pen,’ then ‘I need a portable typewriter,’ word processor, Apple Mac, laptop, time, solitude, coffee, cigarette, red wine, separate building, Spanish bolthole…

You see the pattern?

Actually, all I really need is to know what I’m writing, to have the security of characters and a basic plot.

My desk is currently a moveable feast. Sometimes it’s the sofa, sometimes a table in a café (for a year it was the café in my local gym) and invariably it’s the room at home furthest away from the noise.

[amazon_link id=”1409166511″ target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]But it really doesn’t matter as long as I have my laptop with me. I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve even written while teaching a class doing ‘independent work.’ Sometimes it just has to be done.

All sounds a bit haphazard doesn’t it?

Well, all may be falling down around my ears due to my organisational ineptitude, but my writing is planned like in detail like a Royal wedding.

I list scenes, do chapter plans, timelines, maps of character interaction, decide on pivotal points in the narrative and, imperative to me, be sure how the novel ends.

Now, this doesn’t mean that it won’t change at all, but knowing the ending gives me the confidence to plot towards it. This leaves the challenge of identifying specific pivotal events and scenes that will drive the narrative forward.

So, I have one laptop, two notebooks (the proper, paper kind), a pen, pencil, ruler and some index cards. That’s the extent of my equipment and it’s pretty portable. For about five years, I’ve had a tiny digital voice recorder in my bag, allegedly to record my sparkling prose and dialogue as inspiration arrives and – for those rare occasions – when my notebook isn’t to hand. I’ve never used it.

I have also, on many occasions, intended to affix a whiteboard to a wall, for some brainstorming. But I haven’t yet found a wall.

Really, I’m just an excuse machine. I’m writing this with my laptop perched on the arm of a sofa and a blanket over me because the boiler’s packed up!