AT MY DESK: Jane Routley

AT MY DESK: Jane Routley

 

I once read that Danielle Steele wrote her books in the laundry on the top of her washing machine. It’s tempting to think that if I did the same it might lead me to bestseller paradise, but I’m glad I have my own desk and nowadays my own study. Though I love to chat to people – in fact because I love to chat to people – the eMac I write on isn’t connected to the outside world.  When I’m at my desk, I’m at work. If I want to get onto the net, I use the family PC.

I’m a paper magnet and my desk is usually messy, covered with flyers for interesting events or movies, newspaper articles about tea customs in other countries or Russian steam baths, postcards, doctor’s appointment cards, crosswords, packets of seeds and promising recipes. As well I have the sentimental things – an affectionate card from my husband, glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs from my niece and a picture of a water lily from a yoga teacher.

 

It’s not that I’m particularly crazy about Yoga but if I don’t work at keeping supple, I start to have trouble with my neck and back.  The three telephone books under my computer monitor are to rise my monitor to a more ergonomic level.

 

I also have two pin boards.  I got the second when the first filled up with useful stuff.  I wanted somewhere to keep postcards from friends and cartoons that caught my fancy.  My two favourite cartoons are of a glamorous woman in a fur coat with a caption that reads “My idea of house work is to sweep the room with a glance” (Boy I would so like to take her as a role model!) and a little newspaper cartoon of a broken window and a smashed typewriter with the caption “Claudia enters into a period of wanting to stop writing.”  On days when the plot won’t come together and the characters just won’t do as they’re told I really relate to that cartoon.

 

But when I don’t write for a week or so, I start to get sad and life starts to seem a bit pointless.  I tell my husband I’m feeling low and he says (Bless him!) “Have you written anything lately?”  I guess after writing for the best part of 20 years, I’m hooked.

 

As you might expect, my study is lined with books. But my favourite part of it is actually outside the window. When we moved into this house, I planted a climbing rose so the neighbours and I couldn’t see into each other windows.  I was intending to get a rose “as red as hearts blood” on the principle that all fantasy writers should have such a rose in their gardens. Instead I fell in love with a rose that formed outrageously, delicious rosettes with candy pink centres shading to pale pink outer petals.  It’s called Pierre De Ronsard after a 16th century French poet.  Now that’s romance.

As well as writing fantasy, I also write a blog. I work at a local railway station doing customer service and I find the public an endless source of entertainment.  So along with the usual writing news, I post a series of little vignettes called Station Stories.  You can follow on my website.

 

 

 

About the Author:

Jane Routley writes Historical Fantasy with a chick lit twist.  Her Aurealis award winning Dion Chronicles are available in Ebook from Clan Destine Press and in hard copy from Ticonderoga Publications and her fourth book The Three Sisters will be out by the end of the year.

 

 

Find Jane online:
Website
Ticonderoga Publications
Clan Destine Press
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Facebook
Goodreads

If you would like to review one of Jane’s books, feel free to contact her.