How many other novelists, I wonder, avoid looking at their words as they type them onto the page? I'm actually a fairly fast and accurate typist, but somehow watching my words come out one a time distracts me and disrupts their flow.So I don't watch.
Sometimes I write with my eyes shut, my head thrown back like Stevie Wonder at his piano, pushing words through my fingertips in the same joyous way he pushes music through his. But most of the time I'm looking over the screen of my laptop and out the window opposite my desk. It's just a normal-size window, but it affords me a partial view of our patio garden and beyond that, several mature black walnut trees and a bit of sky--in other words, plenty of light and color and movement to stimulate my imagination.
I would have taken my computer out into the garden this afternoon, but it's been looking like rain. A little while ago I went out with the idea of moving this pot of daisies and petunias in front of my office window (the one on the left side of this photo) so I could enjoy the jazzy orange-and-purple bouquet from my desk. But alas, the stand was too short. So I returned to my desk, where I spent a good five minutes watching two fat robins splash in the bird bath.
I've decided that the view from this window doesn't need improving, after all.
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