Carly Phillips
Where I Write
&
Why I Shouldn’t
Yes, you read that correctly. When I started my career, I wrote in a corner of the kitchen, a small space I carved out for myself at a tiny desk with a huge computer because…1993. Gulp!
Then we moved and I had my own big office, but I still had the small desk with the big computer. Fast forward to the late '90s and by then I’d had 10 manuscripts under my belt, a gazillion rejections because there was no indie publishing back then. It was publish with NY or don’t publish at all. By then I had a smaller office but it was mine, and I had gorgeous formica built-in desk and shelves that I have to this day. See the photos.
Across from me is a big television and since I must write to TV (yes I’m crazy but since that’s how I got through law school, studying while my husband watched television), this is what I’m used to. Want to know what I watch? That’s for another paragraph. I was worried I’d fall sleep in the recliner but I didn’t. My creative juices flowed and life again was good. By now I had two dogs. One slept behind the chair and the other one liked it better wandering the house.
Then came the dreaded shoulder pain. And when I say pain, I mean excruciating pain. To this day I don’t know if it was the one year I decided to try a trainer at the gym or repetitive motion injury from writing but it was awful. I had shoulder surgery on my right shoulder and at some point during this period, I moved to the bedroom and began to write in the bed. NOT GOOD. Not smart. However, this became my norm and it worked for me. Great creativity. Shoulder healed…things got better.
We got lost our first dog, Buddy, and a few months later we got a third dog and he would hop onto the bed with me. Everyone adjusted.
Doesn’t a desk like this deserve an equally gorgeous, sleep iMac? So yes, I tried that too. And I wrote so many books sitting at that desk. And it worked…for awhile. Through one dog that slept behind me on the floor or on the couch that was in the corner of the room. But one day, another writer mentioned the golden words – I write in a RECLINER.
Those words changed my life. I immediately swapped out the couch that fit right into the spot in the corner for a recliner and a sleek Macbook Air laptop and I wrote there for years. I loved it.
My husband has a recliner in the bedroom and sometimes I would find my way onto there and Brady (dog) would hop up so I taught him to turn around and snuggle by my side while I wrote. But most times it was the bed. So what happened? The second shoulder went on me…I still blame the gym but again there’s always that repetitive motion injury possibility. This ultimately led to a second surgery on the other shoulder and a lot of time in the recliner in the bedroom.
What happened to the office recliner, you ask? It has sides and it scrunched my shoulders together. So no, that wasn’t going to work anymore. End result?
Back to the bed where I worked and really enjoyed it … until the shoulder started acting up again. Are we sensing a theme? Debilitated, this year I decided I needed an ergonomic chair. Not a cheap ergonomic chair, either but I found a floor model. I tried it…this now sits in the office. And I gravitate back and forth between the office chair and the bed. Me and my now three dogs.
Carly Phillips is the N.Y. Times and USA Today Bestselling Author of over 50 sexy contemporary romance novels featuring hot men, strong women and the emotionally compelling stories her readers have come to expect and love.
Carly’s career spans over a decade and a half with various New York publishing houses, and she is now an Indie author who runs her own business and loves every exciting minute of her publishing journey. Carly is happily married to her college sweetheart, the mother of two nearly adult daughters and three crazy dogs (two wheaten terriers and one mutant Havanese) who star on her Facebook Fan Page and website. Carly loves social media and is always around to interact with her readers.