I'm sitting here with my Compaq Presario laptop, clicking away while perched on a barstool at my Mom's kitchen counter. I actually love writing in the kitchen -- it's where I first started writing, early in my career, and it still comforts me. For years when I started writing and my kids were little, I used to get up at 5 a.m. so I could get some writing done before they got up, and then I'd write after they went to bed, all at my kitchen table, with my IBM Selectric pulled out or pushed against the wall, depending on whether we were eatin' or I was writin'. It still feels like my writer-home.

However, when I'm home, I have a humongous desk that looks like Central Mission Control and has the real books Peter has suggested, a scanner, printer, vertical files, file cabinet. I rewarded myself with this desk last year, my first Christmas completely alone, with no children or family members nearby, and I put it together myself over two days. I have a big, serious computer and it is online and I spend way too much time surfing, but if it isn't web-surfing, it's something damned else. I used never to be a better house-cleaner than when I had a deadline. I would get so desperate to avoid a deadline that I would do stuff like clean the grout in my bathroom with a toothbrush.

When you're determined to write, you write, regadless, and when you're avoiding it, ANYthing will do ...

Peter, liked # 6, and very much need #7!

WW