Where Writers Write: James King

Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a weekly series that will feature a different author every Wednesday as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where the authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen. 

This is James King.

James is the author of Bill Warrington’s Last Chance (Viking/Penguin), which won the 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. He lives in Wilton, Connecticut, and is working on his next novel. http://www.jamesking-writer.com

Where James King Writes

I’m fortunate to write in the workspace of my dreams.

It took a while to get here, though. My first “official” writing desk was a door set atop two orange crates in a studio apartment in South Bend, Indiana. My second was a fourth-hand, wobbly dinette table set in a bay window overlooking California Street in San Francisco. Next was an equally wobbly table in a basement apartment in Stamford, Connecticut.

My current workspace is the former master bedroom (barely large enough for a queen-sized bed) of the modest (read “tiny”) ranch/cottage my wife and I moved into a month after we were married. When our second child was on the way, we expanded the house. The former master bedroom became the office where, after the coffee has brewed and I’ve completed my grueling commute from the kitchen, I start work each day between 5:30 and 6:00. That’s a.m.  Here ‘tis:

Name a writing technique. I’ve tried it. Here I experiment with a storyboard.

Here’s the view from one of the two office windows, taken earlier this summer. I spend entirely too much time staring out this window. And yes, I spread the mulch. Bambi still visits often.

My satellite work area, weather permitting: the back porch. This picture was taken last year, when my writing companion was still with us. When I’m out there and I look up from the computer, I still expect to see her there, protecting me from all the ferocious squirrels and chipmunks.