This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
I type at a keyboard, which is so full of crumbs and stains, it’s an embarrassment. I also eat, worry and read magazines in the very room that inspired us to buy the house. It’s just a tragedy I’ve made the room quite so busy. The next inhabitants will have to hire a professional detox person to hose it back to the pleasant and tranquil room it once was – more suitable for a nanny or granny annex than a home of a manic writer and loser of pens.
There is a huge balcony that you can sit out on, but I never do because of the guilt caused by heaving my fat arse off my old woollen chair – inspiration might strike and I may miss a creative ‘moment’ you see.
I might go for ten minutes Vit D therapy in the summer, but soon get separation anxiety and have to return to the woolly, scratchy chair and desk – as is my lot. 
As the writing heats up, so does a proliferation of artefacts surrounding me and my desk. Leaves of paper, business cards (normally transported back from an event in my bra) coffee cups, pens that don’t work, stamps, printed out version of articles that I can easily read on the screen but print out in a panic of ungreenly behaviour, glasses lense cleaners, room sprays and old candles … they are all my friends … and I need them.
I can barely walk in to my office right now without tripping over a pile of jiffy envelopes or old comedy material that I might need to refer to at any given moment – you get the picture …
But when the first draft of the book spread to the landing I knew I had to get a grip. I hired a bossy woman to come in and ‘clear’ me up. Not a success. I couldn’t part with certain items (paper knife, clip board and a broken hair slide) and she sighed a lot.
I remember I left one affirmation on my desk once to buoy me up while writing. It said: “I am a successful creative woman sharing my creativity with the world.”
My daughter saw it and left a post it note saying: “No need to boast, Mum.”
Losing It by Helen Lederer is out now.