WHAT'S ON YOUR DESK?

  CINDI MYERS

Though I keep a neat house, my desk is the one exception to that rule. It’s piled high with books and notebooks and manuscript pages, magazines, and miscellaneous files. My desk is actually a computer armoire. I bought it thinking it would be the ideal way to hide all my clutter – simply shut the doors when I wasn’t working. Ha! Those doors are never shut, and there’s too much junk on the desk to ever close them!

In addition to all the papers and books, I have pictures – one of me and my friend, author Julie Ortolon, when she visited here one summer. One, of my husband dressed in a pirate costume for Halloween, and one of me and my husband atop Mt. Bierstad, the first 14,000 foot mountain I climbed. I climbed the mountain at a time when I wasn’t selling and I told myself if I could get to the top of that mountain, I could do anything. That picture reminds me that I did make it to the top and I can do anything.

I’m a big believer in visual inspiration, so I also have two little posters I made. One is a collage full of inspirational words cut from magazines – things like The Best is Yet to Come and New York Times Bestseller! The other is similar but with photographs and pictures of things I want to come into my life. I also have some cartoons and cards people have sent tacked up around my desk.

I have three little bean bag animals – a Texas horned toad because I think horned toads are the cutest things. We used to play with them when I was a kid and now they’re endangered. (I had nothing to do with it, I promise!) Also, two stuffed cows. One was a gift from a friend and one was a giveaway at a sporting event. I have a group of friends who adopted cows as our sort of mascot, so the cows remind me of them.

I also have a little statue of a cute bear grinning at me. He’s my Colorado bear. And a little dragon holding a pencil – his name is Scribbles and he was a gift from another friend.

Actually, I have a lot of stuff from friends around me as I work: a purple glass heart paperweight that was a gift from a friend and a little wooden jar made by my father-in-law. A purple silk sachet stuffed with lavender and a little ceramic box from another dear friend. A gorgeous fountain pen in a purple satin case from another friend. Some glow-in-the-dark stars that make me smile every time I see them, and a ceramic wren made by my favorite aunt.

I also have reminders of some very dear past friends who were always by my side as I wrote – two little boxes with the ashes of dear departed dogs – Gretchen and Shelby. They’re sitting way up on top of the armoire, along with a framed drawing of a blue bird that reminds me of a little blue parakeet, P.J., I had for many years.

I have a little shelf of reference books – Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, The Synonym Finder, Merriam Webster’s Tenth Edition Collegiate Dictionary, a Secretarial Handbook, various computer and software manuals and discs, and a little notebook containing all of Stephanie Bond’s self-editing articles, which I printed from her website.

My husband gives me a new desk calendar for Christmas every year. The one I’m using now is Wild Words from Wild Women and has a quote for every day. I also have an appointment calendar from the Sierra Club.

There are days when I pretty much live at my desk, so I have a bottle of vanilla-scented hand-lotion and a box of chocolate calcium chews and a couple of nail files. More Post-it notes and pens than I’ll probably use in a lifetime, but I love them. An exercise band that I seldom use. A coaster from Greece (from writer Carole Bellacera) on which invariably sits a cup of tea.

I guess you could say my desk is a pretty good reflection of what’s important to me in my life – friends and family, beauty and inspiration and humor. When I sit down to work I have things around me to make me smile, to make me think, and to make me thankful that I’m privileged enough to do this for a living!

Her current release A Soldier Comes Home
is on sale now.

ADAPTATION 
(2002)

Written by:
Charlie Kaufman
Donald Kaufman


Starring:
Nicolas Cage
Meryl Streep
Chris Cooper


A lovelorn screenwriter
turns to his less talented
twin brother for help when his
efforts to adapt a nonfiction
 book go nowhere.  

 

SAY WHAT? Misused Words

Torrid - oppressively hot; passionate.
     Always just far enough behind to be out of sight, he kept pace with the little column as it marched through the torrid heat of the morning.

Tawdry - cheap, gaudy.
     A pair of tawdry ruffles dangled at his wrists, while his throat was nearly bare.

A MOMENT IN THE HISTORY OF WRITING

In 1953, a former World War II bombardier was struck with an idea while sipping his morning coffee. It was such a good idea, he went to work immediately building a plot and some memorable characters around it. When he finished the first chapter, he sent it to his agent and then spent the next year thinking about the rest of the story.

Although he was shooting for a novella, he soon realized he had enough material to turn his dark comedy into a full-fledged novel. He sent a third of it to his agent who was so excited, he submitted the incomplete manuscript to publishers. The author, on the other hand, was more laidback and decided he wouldn't even finish the thing if publishers weren't interested. 

Simon & Schuster grabbed it for $750 and promised him an additional $750 when he delivered the full manuscript. Eight years later, he complied.

When Catch-22 hit the bookstores in 1961, it received mixed reviews. The hardback sold only 30,000 copies in the US the first year of publication. But when the paperback emerged a year later, the novel captured the imaginations of many. It went on to sell 10 million copies.

"Everyone in my book accuses everyone else of being crazy," said Joseph Heller. "Frankly, I think the whole society is nuts, and the question is: What does a sane man do in an insane society?"

The novel's title has since become a buzzword for a no-win situation. And to this day, the US Air Force Academy uses the book to help prospective officers "recognize the dehumanizing aspects of bureaucracy."

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