The Inspirational Surround

HALLIE: For Christmas, one of my daughters gave me fingerless gloves. My other daughter gave me flannel slippers with buckwheat/beanbag soles that can be heated in the microwave. My husband gave me a lovely soft, pale gray wool shawl. As I type this, I'm wearing all of them (the things, not the family) and sipping a cup of hot tea in my office, a little room that hangs off the side of our house. In realtor speak: a solarium. Actually it's a winterized sun porch, barely eight by fourteen, with 7 windows all around. I love this light-filled space, and it has the great virtue of smallness,\ so I can't indulge my inner packrat. But when the temperature outside is seven degrees, which it was the other morning, it's COLD in here, and it feels even colder because I like my computer right up agains the window so I can watch the sparrows shivering the bushes as they peer longingly at the frozen birdbath.

Very glamorous, my writing life. So, how glamorous is yours--because it's one of the truths of life that misery loves company.

JAN: How glamorous is my office? Think painted paneling and bulletin boards. Not one bulletin board, mind you, but two because I'm the kind of person who needs visual stimuli pinned up in front of her so not to lose or forget anything. There's also an enormous office-sized printer with mental issues (its paranoid that its paper drawer is open -- sort of like that bad dream that you've gone to work without your shirt on). Lots of wires and storage drives I don't quite understand (my husband comes home with computer periferal extras) a guitar stand with the guitar missing, and a dog bed with my dog, Amber, currently snoring -- or maybe its more like doggie groaning.

The color scheme is beige and brown. Need I say more?

RO: It's a room we added on top of the house so there's a rather skinny set of steps to get up there. High ceilings, skylights, floor to ceiling windows and a slider to a small deck with a platform and pergola. Right now I'm watching a woodpecker nibble on a branch outside my window and I have to stop whatever I'm doing if I hear one of the owls.

My desk is a long slab of wood on top of two iron sewing machine bases. I have a bunch of mix-matched vintage furniture including a china cabinet filled with shells, a rattan sofa covered in barkcloth and a birds eye maple chest. There are books everywhere, a tree in the corner with a pink wrought iron flamingo stuck in the pot, and a telescope for when I need to check out the nighttime sky. One wall is floor to ceiling bookcases - just mysteries and gardening books. Like Jan I have two bulletin boards, filled with everything from my agent's first wonderful email to me (I Love It!) to pix of Bettie Page, Edith Wharton, the Virgin of Guadalupe..the list goes on.

It's a wonder I ever get any work done.

ROBERTA: I have a small nook off the bedroom with an astonishing view. But the part I like best is the slanted wall over my computer and printer--slathered with photos, poems, cartoons, an NYT bestseller list to give me inspiration. Here are a few samples:

1. a cartoon from Byline, one guy is handing another guy a book
and saying "We've started with a small print run. Here's your copy
and I'll keep the other one."
2. a photo of my stepson Andrew with our old dog Poco. The dog
has a sign around his neck saying "Andy is my valentine."
My son has a sign around his neck saying "Poco is my valentine."
I think he was a freshman in high school and we'd gone out to
dinner leaving him home without a date!
3. a list my husband passed on:
free your heart from hatred, free your mind from worries, live
simply, give more, expect less...

HANK: Sometimes my study is so sunny I have to wear my Evita baseball cap (Where the heck did I get that? Don't remember) to be able to see the computer screen. I'm sure I'm quite a sight: ponytail sticking out of the cap, no makeup, a big sweatshirt from the Gap that says Ti(RED) on the back. Sweatpants and those cozy clogs that I can't remember the name of that have tyrolean braid around the edges. Very very glam. Very.

I can see trees and sky out the bay window in front of me, squirrels fighting with the blue jays. A whole wall of books. A wonderful photo on an easel beside--but I can't see the photo anymore because I've covered it with so many signing posters and memorabilia(me at B and N, Borders, other bookstores. The best seller list with my books on it. My special fave is a cash register receipt from the Borders cafe that has "come meet Hank Phillippi Ryan" printed on the bottom).

I'm surrounded by books I might need. Hallie's in case I get stumped. Stephen King On Writing. Strunk and White. Baskets of file folders with notes in them. Again, via Hallie, my "compost" file of newspaper stories. I dig into them when my brian needs fuel, maybe for just a word. My word count chart. My scene and character and timing notebook. A sign that says: Hook. Stakes. Beautiful Writing.

On my desk, behind the monitor,the glittering beribboned bags that people used when they gave me book-deal champagne. In front of the monitor, two engraved little rocks. One says: Patience. The other says: Imagine.

HALLIE: I wonder if that's a universal among writers--that we surround ourselves with words. Our talismans. One of mine is a quote from an all-time favorite children's story from Carl Sandburg's Rootabaga Stories:

And a secret ambition is a little creeper that creeps and creeps
in your heart
night and day, singing a little song, "Come and find me, come and
find me."

Read the story of "Three Boys With Jugs of Molasses and Secret Ambitions" and have a lovely, inspired day with your very own freckles and secret ambitions.

So, with what talismans do you surround yourself?