White Space...

In today's NYT an article about "white space" which is (apparently) the name given to places where people do actual work, as opposed to their desks where they are supposed to be working but can't because their desks are too cluttered with nick-nacky work that is getting in the way of their real work.

The phrase is new to me, but not the concept. I find I've been an aficianado of White Space for some time. Despite the fact that my desk is enormous (I inherited it from Devilman who bought it years and years ago from OfficeMax but then abandoned it when the legs broke...I fished the top out of the trash and my pa made new legs out of gas pipes, and aqui, as good as new)...despite my desk's size, I can't seem to get any work done on it. Probably because it's always covered with crap: pens, pencils, notebooks, lamps, stamps, ink wells, cards cases, tape rolls, jewelry boxes, books, dog treats, plastic squids, bottles of black nail polish, pictures of John Bell Hood and U.S. Grant, a holiday Jack Ball, etc..

So I only sit at my desk to web-surf and blog. When I need to write, I go to the dining room table which is blissfully clear of crap, and gets sunlight in the afternoon. (My office has windows facing west so it's pitch black by 2 p.m.) The dining room is where I wrote most of FLORA'S DARE. FLORA SEGUNDA was mostly written in my parent's laundry room in Arivaipa Territory; it's tiny and warm and floods with light in the afternoon.* I find lots of natural light helps with the creativity immensely. Many people go to cafes to write but that doesn't work for me. While there are many nice cafes in Porkopolis, I don't find any of them conducive to lingering in, plus, I personally get really annoyed at people who park in cafes for hours and hours nursing the same cup of coffee, monopolizing all the tables so that those of us who just want to sit for ten minutes to drink our cappuccinos can not. Also, I get distracted by people watching. In my dining room and my parent's laundry room there are no people to distract you, just grunting sleeping dogs, who are easily tuned out.

So those are my current White Spaces, which would more accurately be defined at Dark Green & Gold Lincrusta Space, and Sunlit Laundry Machine Space.

How 'bout you?