Stephen King | M. E. Murray

Frog/www.memurray.com.wordpress.com — Frog and Blessed Virgin Mary

Hi! Meet my friends and guardians, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and a green, stuffed, frog.

When I decided to become a writer, my husband bought me a computer, a monitor, a printer, and all the items I needed.

I bought the Blessed Virgin Mary statue at a garage sale for ten cents. She sits by my computer, below my monitor. I’m not sure when I got the frog. I suppose this happened during the Beanie Baby collecting craze. Although my frog is not a Beanie Baby, I put it on top of every computer that I had ever had. I enjoy seeing the frog and the Blessed Virgin every day, plus I think they serve a purpose. The frog sits on top of the computer, and the Virgin sits on the desk by the monitor and computer. Both are ever so watchful of everything I do. They make sure I am working, especially when I don’t feel like writing or doing much because I feel bad. (I have fibromyalgia.) In addition, my husband periodically checks to see if I’m okay while I’m working .

I write regardless of how badly I feel. I write every day even if it’s a few hundred words but I write. Somewhere, I think I read that Stephen King writes every day except on his birthday. Let me know if this is true. I also edit my short stories, read, and always try to do something related to writing everyday unless I feel really bad.

Dear reader: When I finally got the courage to create a web site, the question: “Will I be able to maintain a web site?” constantly plagued me since I have fibromyalgia (Fibro). Eventually, I decided that I wouldn’t let Fibro take over. Why? It’s just that I enjoy telling stories, and I will continue telling stories until I croak. Perhaps my relentless interest in writing stories regardless of how I feel, might convince another writer, plagued with a chronic illness, to continue writing. After all, creative writing is a gift. My blogs in “Musings” will be brief or sometimes long, depending on my health. (I don’t intend to give tips on how to write. There are other writers who handle this topic very well.)

I often wondered what my first blog should be about. Then, I remembered that a while back my writers group requested that members submit pictures of their writing work areas. At the time, I didn’t have a camera, so I couldn’t submit a picture.

Consequently, I decided that my first blog would involve talking about my workspace. To write you don’t need a huge desk or a humongous office. As you can see in the picture above, an old dresser with a tall mirror that sits in a corner of my bedroom constitutes my writing workspace. The monitor, computer, and printer sit on top of the dresser. On either side of the dresser, there are two drawers that are pulled out. I placed some books on top of the drawers to establish the proper height so that I could keep from straining my back and neck while staring at the monitor. On top of the book-drawer arrangement, I placed a board to hold my keyboard and mouse pad. On the side of the dresser, by the printer, is an old floor lamp which lights up my work area.

On the wall to the left of my printer is a large picture of Pinocchio, one of my favorite books and movies. It keeps me entertained and happy, plus it also helps to cover the hole that the plumbers made when they busted the sheet rock to repair a leaky pipe in the bathroom shower stall. We were supposed to install an access panel, but never got around to doing it. And I don’t think plumbers were qualified to do it. And it would have cost us more to have somebody install it. We never checked, though. So we still have the hole in the wall, but it is covered with a large piece of cardboard which in turn is covered by the Pinocchio picture which I love to see every day. For the time being this arrangement works. Also on this side of the corner is an old floor lamp which lights up my work area. This is my my writing workstation. What does yours look like?