The school year is over, and we ritually burned the math worksheets last weekend! Then we set to work converting the homeschool classroom into my very own writing room. I’ve never really had a room that was all my own (at least not since high school). It’s not quite finished yet – I still need to paint the walls – but it’s real. And I plan on spending a lot of time here in the next several months. Test readers are starting to send me feedback on Daughter of Oreveille, and I start working with the cover artist later this week. If all goes well, it will be available on Amazon early this summer, with Defender of Oreveille coming out this fall. But just for today, I’m enjoying my new writing room, and wanted to share it with you:

Before – our homeschool classroom:

Homeschool Classroom3

Desks with art supplies in the center.

 

Here’s my writer’s room, transformed:

Today I’m sharing my top 10 writing tools, the essentials without which I simply couldn’t do whatever it is that I do:

10 – Coffee. Don’t expect me to be coherent, let alone creative, at 5am without coffee. Ain’t gonna happen.

9 – Quiet. I don’t work well in loud, busy environments. I need quiet to think.

8 – Notebook. I’m really picky about my notebooks. Different stories require different notebooks. This is where I create the first draft, with all the mistakes and crazy risks that sometimes turn out to be wonderful.

7 – Pencils. The mechanical kind that don’t need sharpened in the middle of a pivotal scene.

6 – Laptop. As I type that first handwritten draft, I edit, expand, and polish. I work all over the place, so I have to be able to take my work with me.

5 – Printer stocked with paper and ink. Sometimes it’s easier to edit on paper.

4 – More coffee.

3 – Distractions. Sometimes I have to come up for air. My favorites: Facebook, Google Talk, and Dragonvale!

2 – Novels. Lots of them.

1 – Time. I never have enough of it to keep up with my growing story idea file!

What are your essential tools?