Where does your story take place?
In Alaska, but not the Alaska most people think of. Instead of writing about snow and sled dogs or what Alaskans call 'The Interior', I chose to write about the area we call Southeast Alaska.
In 1976 I moved from the Southwest United State where it hardly rains to Southeast Alaska where it rains constantly.
Here is a world of rainforest, islands, totem poles, fish, boats, and native villages. It is an isolated area only reached by plane or boat. Here is where I lived for 29 years and raised my daughters. Ketchikan is on Revilla Island, the southern most port-of-call on the Inside Passage, and receives thirteen feet of rain a year. The forest is so thick it is hard to walk through and everything is always wet. For the first year I wouldn't even touch the moss, and the fungus, growing everywhere, scared me. I persevered and I got to experience an amazing 29 years.
Describe your desk
My desk mirrors the wanna-be-me. It is long and narrow and I'm short and a bit stocky. My mind is fairly organized but a bit messy like my desk. Lots of projects are evolving in my head and the beginnings of stories are lying in piles on my computer desk-top. I have a printer, a can of pens & pencils and a pencil sharpener sitting nearby. A little stuffed monkey sits next to my lamp and admonishes me that I need to work harder.
Would you believe (this is factual) that in addition to the above, right now I have on my desk: Two calendars, note pad with chores I need to do before dinner, 11 reference books, three thumb drives, three pencils, one pen, a story to revise, my ipod, art supply catalog (I do art), and three mugs with pencils and paint brushes. Oh yes, I have a phony skull a bit like Lucy the Australopithecus ... it has USB ports I can use. (P.S. I didn't get the chores done but went for a walk instead)
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