Share Your Spaces 4

More generously-shared snapshots into the lives of creative people! Be sure to click the links here as in the other share your spaces posts – you will be rewarded with fine words, insights, images. Sharing their spaces with us now, a blogger/writer and a (formerly anonymous) internet-lit-world bright light/author:

This space belongs to: Macdougalstreetbaby -

I sit at the dining room table, with 180 degrees of light pouring in. The only direction I don’t face is south, probably because there are no windows there. I like windows. They help me breathe.

This space belongs to: INTERN -

Here’s a photo of INTERN’s writing space.

 

Techie Boyfriend built this desk for INTERN out of a pile of bricks and a piece of wood we found in the back yard. The wood was frozen when we dragged it inside, and for the first few days it radiated cool air as it thawed. Then bugs started crawling out of it! But now it’s a pretty good desk. The Norfolk Pine makes things a little crowded, but it was the only place in our otherwise dark and chilly rooms that got enough sun. The stack of paper is a print-out of MIDNIGHT AT THE RADIO TEMPLE, which INTERN is in the final stages of revising. 

Link it up

A copy of my PhD thesis (a part of which went on to become Kilea), just after submitting. This was a good night out with friends, and I am not able to tell you the name of that shot because it's faintly hilarious and mostly obscene

I just read a lovely, encouraging post from the INTERN, and I want to direct all writers reading this in that direction. It’s all about helping out fellow writers (and could be extended to other artists too) by means of kindness and introductions and, which I love, lending books. I have a tendency to give away even books I really enjoyed and might look over again to friends I think would gain something important from the reading. This is why I no longer have One DOA and One on the Way, by Mary Robison, or The Way Through Doors by Jesse Ball, both novels (one in microfiction form, the other a web of fable like tales) that expanded my way of thinking about fiction.

If I would add only a few other points to INTERN’s list,

these would be:

1. Read. Their. Book. If your friend trusts you enough to give you the (finished, edited, done) copy of their novel, please, please try your best to get through it. If you don’t like it, that’s fine, you can be tactful, congratulate them on their efforts at crossing the finishing line. The worst feeling is when someone says ”I lost it…’ or, when they’ve told you they haven’t read it say ‘it was okay’. ‘Okay’ is worse than hating it, in my opinion. Hate at least implies some kind of passion.

2. Go to the book launch. Go to any readings or public appearances of your friend, even if you are tired or busy. It means so much to have friendly faces in a crowd (especially if the crowd is one scowling man texting on his blackberry and the bookseller sighing and looking at her watch).

and

3. When your friend gets their book published, don’t just blog about it, or review it (you may, if you are close friends, feel a bit hesitant about the latter) but buy a copy for two friends, and tell them if they really love it, to buy a copy for two friends of theirs, thus creating recommendation links outwards. If the book comes into the hands of someone who isn’t as keen on it as you were, tell them to pass it on for free to another friend. Go to your local library and request the book be stocked. Link the book up to readers in any way you can. Don’t do this out of sheer anticipation for your own endeavors, but out of desire to spread the love.

That’s all I can think of at the moment, any more ideas?