I started writing back in the ’90s. I didn’t know shit from Shinola about writing back then*, but I was willing to try anything. This is the desk at which I spent many months over the years refining my lack of expertise.

I wrote my first fiction short in that room in the mid-90s. It took three days of 8-to-5 a day. I ended up with 7,500 words – all hand-written, I might add. Some years later, a laptop was added into the mix.

The astute observer will note the abundance of cheap wine in the foreground. Being the non-drinker that I am, I hasten to add that I was the procurer** for the Inn’s Cheap Wine Party. After closing, some of us would shuffle off to the pool area, where we would light a hellish hot fire in the Franklin and huddle around it in the cold of a desert night. Later, there were t-shirts, but unfortunately, I don’t have pictures, because, you know, discretion and all.

When the poolside fire burned out, survivors would hie off to my room. I’d flash up the cozy fireplace and we would continue talking into daylight in the swamp. Or something.

*  not that I claim to know any more now.

** and chief instigator.