An MFA in Writing student recently asked for a photo of my writing spot for a lecture she was working on. I’ve never given it much thought, but looking at the space through someone else’s eyes, I see it differently. The big desk was a bargain I couldn’t pass up when a realtor was breaking up her office and wanted to rid herself of the monstrosity. I could never have afforded the heavy seven-drawer thing had it been new or even in a used furniture store.

When I complained about all the drooping cords blocking the drawers, my husband took his drill and to my horror drilled a hole in the top so I could run the cords through the bottom. I put the bookcase over the hole to hide it and voila!

I’ve recently changed the pulls from the heavy Victorian style with fancy curves and embellishes to more modern brass pulls that seem to me like em dashes. I use the em dash in place of the semicolon, so the effect pleases me.

Stephen King keeps his desk under a stairwell with no windows, but I need light. When I first set up the office, the window above the desk was a blank opening to the living room below. That wasn’t working because I could hear my husband talking on his phone or playing his seventies music and his YouTube comedy shows. George Gobel was his favorite, and I heard him giggling at Gobel’s lame jokes. He also likes to vacuum—I’m not sure why. But the growl of the vacuum cleaner was a major distraction. He once put his chainsaw ear protectors on my head while he vacuumed, but that felt weird. We needed to do something else.

He found three antique windows online just the right size and ordered them. They came with a broken piece of glass, which he replaced. I cleaned up the frames and painted them, and he installed them. That meant moving the desk, which turned out to be a good thing since I’d never cleaned under it or behind it. While I was at it, I painted the office a nice buff color. No writing for a week, however.

The look now gives the sense of a real office, like one of those antique bank offices with windows that look out on the business at hand but which muffle sound. The windows also keep me from thinking about pitching myself out the opening when I get a rejection, which happens at least once a week. Fortunately, these windows don’t open.

My office also has a pocket door, which I can close when there’s noise downstairs. To the right of the desk I’ve set up a small cot for napping and lots of pillows for propping myself up when I need to think about where a story is going. There’s a radio, which is useless because we live in a rural area that only receives an AM station that sells farm equipment and plays lousy music. But the device has a CD player, and you may be able to see the stack of CDs above the floor lamp. I like to listen to instrumental music when I’m writing. Blues peps me up when I need to gut through a paragraph. And Buena Vista Social Club gives me a chance to get out of my swivel chair and do some dancing to relieve stress.

Atop the desk you’ll find a water bottle, framed family photos, a calendar book, notepads, and lots of important scraps of paper on which I’ve made scribbles about something or other. Often I can’t decipher my own writing. There’s a New Yorker cartoon tear-off calendar for some comic relief when I can understand the esoteric meanings. In the book case are a Roget’s, Rumi translation, journals, Bartlett’s, a dictionary, two books of quotations by famous women, and more scraps of paper with undecipherable snippets of thoughts.

Under the desk is the printer which works only sometimes. I have to hold my mouth just right, as my mother would say. Fortunately, most publishing venues want work submitted online these days.

I’m lucky to have an extra room upstairs where I’ve been able to make a space that’s all mine. I’m not one to seek out a busy coffee shop or even the library with youngsters dashing about and the librarian greeting customers. Every writer needs a place, even if it’s in a stairwell. Rent if you must—above someone’s garage or a stall in a barn or an unused shed. Surround yourself with what’s familiar and what makes you comfortable. Fix the light just right but don’t get too comfortable. Whatever you do, you mustn’t allow the muse to fall asleep.