Writer's workspaces

 I should be looking for a house these days. I do but not as consistently as someone who could be homeless, with his whole family, in a few months should.

I don't actually know if that is why I am now interested in these images of author's desks and offices. Is this some adjacent sort of procrastination? An on-topic concern for what I will/might/should be buying in soon?

Here they are. Maybe I will add some commentary as I add photos and such.

Twitter claims this was Ursula K Le Guin's desk and workspace. A friend replied to the Tweet suggesting that this wasn't her office.  I don't know.The image came from her home but perhaps was not her office? You can tour her house here.

I will be looking at more images from that tweet by Into the Forest Deep. Somehow at that Tweet, I found a fairly large image but when I selected 'image in new tab' the result was smaller. I have gone with that image here so if you want a slightly larger one, follow the Tweet link.

Le Quin passed away two years ago so the office does not look lived in but ready to sell. I see myself as having maybe a writing space indoors or a workshop that transitions from cerebral writing and planning and drawing to more physical creative work, mostly wood carving. I would be afraid to hold a block of wood in Le Guin's space even while I love the views.

From the same Tweet, Neil Gaiman's desk looks more used. I would not worry about dropping a piece of 8" X 8" in there.

Tolkien's desk is shown in that Tweet but it looks far too genteel for my liking. University dons in the UK at the time had standards, I guess. I don't care for Terry Pratchett's desk for a different kind of clutter than Gaiman's. This many screens seems, well, silly. 

I do like other aspects of the room but there is too much bare floorspace. I mean, it looks good and I might aspire to having my mess in one place only but to me, too much bare space means underusing the space.

In these tweets, Cherie Priest shows us her office. Here are two images that I shrunk slightly - to see them full size, follow the link:

and

I chose these two, from an excellent assortment, to show her desk and also her Murphy bed. I think that when the bed is up, there are dog beds on the floor. My own bed, which does not fold into the wall, often becomes a storage and semi-workspace. I don't know if hers does but it is available.

I like the look of this office, no idea whose, the image (again shrunk) is from a real estate company. but the wood is beautiful. I like the idea of having lots of windows but I typically have to close the blinds because the light is brighter than my computer screen.

This, less professionally arranged, is what I expect my office, at least the writing area, to look like. From.

It seems to ordinary for me. Facing a bookshelf with windows nearby would be great.

I want more of this From here:

Not quite so practical or physical but at lest some elements from this image. Probably not the firewood under my workspace but probably nearby.

Again, just a little too physical:

I life the idea of making a sort of police conspiracy board with images and text connected by yarn to help me see my stories. So I need so blank wall space I can temporarily tack up plans and brainstorming results.

I have started Inktober. I tried to draw the office I want.

What I mostly see, and already knew, is that fine detail is beyond me. I wanted a transition from more intellectual work on the left and more physical work on the right. So my computer and a poster of ideas and plans for my Nanowrimo 2020 book on the wall on the left. I didn't think I could draw a credible chair and also show stuff on the counter so no chair. We we move right, we see more drawers and shelves, a model ship, a window with a view of a tree and another empty space where I could sit close to the counter and use a saw or a drill. There is a cutting board for delicate cutting there and I am struck by how my calendar, cutting board and dark empty spaces all are similar in appearance in my drawing! There is also an island or a table or counter at the bottom of the image with my tea and camera on a tripod. It has a lot that I want but so much more detail was beyond me.

Oh, deliberately included in my photo at the top is the pencil work on easel paper where I planned my drawing.

TWI (Surprises') Creativity:D&D, victorian novels,

I taught what was probably my last ESL class in Korea last week. It was a presentations skills class for a multinational technology company. The recruiter, a third party that hired me to teach, might have another class in the next three weeks. Otherwise, I am basically done as an ESL educator. Or at least done in Korea.

I am conflicted and confused about what I will actually do in Canada. I will be there for a few months and then my wife and son will join me. This is the time for me to make a living being creative! This is the time for me to write that story to completion and revise it til it glows and get it out there. This is the time I need to work for myself and make things happen.

But it seems I am not a good boss. I have written the full 50,000 words toward a complete novel four times now with Nanowrimo but I have not completed any of those novels in the eleven months between Nanowrimo festival. I completed a lot of paperwork for my wife's immigration to Canada so that is one thing out of the way. I really do have the time. The next three weeks, even if I do teach another Presentations in English class, have lots of free time to write. This next period is crucial to seeing if I really can be creative professionally.

A few years ago I took an online class in creativity, run by Tina Seelig at Stanford University. In the course she strongly evangelized for brainstorming and I felt (and feel) that the effectiveness of brainstorming is uncertain, maybe even controversial. And yet, when I took the class, I decided to dive in and be as enthusiastic as I could be. Positivity all the way. I needed to make this decision because I knew at the start that the theme was music and that music would be a forced connection to other ideas. I am not a musical person and I knew I had to try, to involve myself. It worked. I had a great time and learned a lot, even that brainstorming has several rules I was unaware of and, as a case study, appeared to be more effective than I had imagined.

I need that positivity now. I am scared of what what will happen in May and I need to be excited about May. Fighting! (A Korean/ Konglish word used as a cheer)
---

Alright, on to some links of creative work to inspire you in This Week In Creativity.

A neural network has made some D&D stuff. The link goes to new animals the program put together, but the programmer or computer or software (I really gotta catch up on terminology) has also made spells and more.
---

What’s your Great #Victorian #Novel? pic.twitter.com/OofresREhH

— VictorianMasculinity (@VictorianMasc) March 23, 2018

I have had difficulty embedding Tweets so here is the image (again?):

---

Life of SurprisesAplenty and plans for the future

I am unemployed.

I am looking for work and a white-skinned English speaker in Korea with a clean record will always find work.  I would prefer to work at a university, as I have for more than 12 years, but I will to settle in the short term for more ... work.

A quick discussion of ESL teaching at a Korean university:   Honestly and sadly, the single best part of being a 'professor' (some universities bestow that title, while others stick with the more honest 'instructor') is how little there is.
At my last university, I worked twelve to sixteen hours a week, thrity weeks a year.  Those were class-time hours and I had other duties, but they weren't scheduled and repetition reduced their volume greatly.  And naturally, I worked off campus, but when I wanted a month or two to do something else, I had it, and was paid.
The students were polite and many, even most, wanted to learn but few were driven or excited by the non-major, mandatory ESL classes.
At children's after-school classes, the English being displayed was not much lower than that of my uni students; the biggest difference was that, instead of being too active and disruptive in class, my uni students were too sleepy.
Teaching at an extended learning school for adults was great; the students were eager and since they were paying, they focused on the material and tried to use English.  On the other hand, classes for adults are scheduled early and late; I used to teach 6:30 to 12:00 pm and again in the evening 5:00 to 9:30pm.

Back to me and this blog.

I want to be a professional writer.  I am trying to write every day but it is so easy to leave my writing for later and later until there is no more later left and I go to sleep. This is my chance to see if I can do it.  I've completed Nanowrimo a few times but I haven't completed a book.
I started this blog because I was curious about what it means to be creative.  It became a diary and study notes on creativity research.  I want this blog to continue in these functions but advice from authors and creatives is that I need to be in the public eye and producing interesting content as a way to promote my style or brand or self so that a future, hypothetical book will sell the first few copies.
There is an author I follow on Twitter and I have mentioned this person on my blog, how recycles posts. This probably means the author has more time to write the books that pay the bills but I think it reduces the value of the author's social media outreach.  I digressed lengthily on ESL teaching so I'll save my thoughts on social media outreach for another post, but I want my posts here to be fun, to be of Goldilocks length and not to get in the way of my book writing.

Here are my ideas.  As I work these out, I will likely assign specific days to  individual ideas but for now, I will work through the list once or a few times to see how they work out.

Creativiti ideas:

Clickbait answers and guesses I have found links and suggestive images as 'promoted content' at the bottom of various blogs. They are often of the, "How did this woman become a millionaire at age 25?" and a picture of a woman showing a whole lot of leg in a luxury car.  I am going to see if I can guess how or why "Doctors don't want you to see this video!"  I may actually follow the link and read or watch that video but I don't think I need to.

Exploring Incheon I am unemployed because my wife was transferred to a new city, Incheon, and I followed her here. In my fifteen-odd years in Korea, I have visited Incheon only once so now I can be a tourist again and explore a city that is far less grimy than I had been led to believe.  This will not necessarily be 'creative' but perhaps my photos will be of exhibition quality.

TWIC Naturally, I will continue This Week In Creativity, where I post a number of links to relevant material.  In the past, this has been to author's blogs, archives of public domain images and somewhat scientific articles on the study of creativity.

Evolution I have another blog, one focused on evolution and creationism.  I will try to post material there on a weekly basis and post a link to this blog for anyone interested in the subject.

Education Can you teach someone to be creative? Can you teach so as not to damage your student's creativity?  I have written on the subject before (and given lectures and seminars on the subject) and you can expect more of the same.

Animals I was joking earlier about 'exhibition quality' photos.  I have some eye for framing but my images are typically more educational than stylish or artistic.  Still, when you take a lot of pictures, a few turn out pretty well.  Expect images of local animals here.

Book reviews As a wannabe writer, reading is a good way to learn the craft.  I read a lot but tend to skim through a book. Case in point, despite all my reading, I still have trouble with basic grammar and punctuation.  I don't expect this to become a grammar blog but I will write about ideas found in different books and how the authors describe things.

So, these are my goals.  Let's see what happens!

Bowie's process

Word count

Jan 11: -- 
my God, how have I left it so long?

---

First, the iron would be mixed with nickel and heated to.... Okay, not Bowie the knife maker, although such ideas led me to this (Note, as always, and so also with other images in this post, I have shrank it somewhat.  For a full-size image, follow the link.  For a somewhat larger image, click the image):

I don't mean to make light of David Bowie's passing, but honestly, I never owned an album or CD of his.  Of course, I know Major Tom and his, "We can be heroes" song - that was him, right?

Still, I naturally have respect for the man and his work.  How did he remain relevant for 50 years? What was his process? From Stephen Collins.

Good to know.
---
Many science fiction authors of days of yore believed the future would be one of ease for the everyday man.  Okay, at least one author did.  It seemed so obvious that I just accepted it.  Boingboing looks at why this probably won't be the case.  See also Humans need not apply (Youtube link).

The future is difficult to imagine. I am at home in Ontario.  Well, I am at my mother's home, which feels like home when I am in Canada.  I looked at and threw away a lot of old papers, including my elementary school report cards.  I didn't want my son to see how terrible a student I was.  One thing that caught my eye was the low marks I received and commentary on my terrible spelling.

Nowadays, does spelling matter?  For important documents, I use spell check.  For informal docs, notes and chats, bad spelling is a sign of comfort with the other party - "I'm so relaxed in your company that I don't have to overthink my conversation."

Still, I somehow am more relaxed in theory about spelling but spelling errors still leap out at me when I read a book, so it has some value.  A more notable and common group of errors involve grammar and word choice.  They're, their, and there. "My family aren't..."  Spelling seems to be an easy problem for computers to solve; grammar less so.  How will education change to address this?  Will people simply change in their tolerances?  In teaching ESL, I simultaneously note every absent 'a' and 'the' and find I have no trouble understanding the text.  If it doesn't degrade understanding, perhaps the new frontier of tolerance will be grammar variance.

Does my reader(s?) have any predictions for the future?  Actionable ones we can make money on or even include in art so we look like prophets in ten or twenty years (or five)?
---
Periodic Table Battleship. Via Boredpanda.
--
Traveling as I am, I find it difficult to listen to podcasts.  This discussion with David Ben looks like it would be interesting.  Ben's personal website is here.
---
ESL teaching time savers.  Gotta say, this link is the least related to my blog's topic.