Guest: GALE LAURE

The Fantasy Office of This Author
By Gale Laure

I have often fantasized about my perfect office. This will be a perfect room. I imagine it will be warm in color – perhaps a warm brown or beige – but expansive and cool. It will be a place where I can go and get lost. I can be alone with my characters. I can envision their adventures and feel their emotions.

My fantasy office will have ceilings more than sixteen feet tall with a loft area surrounding three sides of the room. A spiral staircase will lead upward to this loft. In my loft are large comfortable chairs and a few side tables. Bookcases are on every wall from floor to ceiling.

Bookshelves would also cover the wall in the lower half of my office except for one wall. Light would pour into the room from a floor-to ceiling window on this wall. I would have a credenza facing this window. Hummingbird feeders would hang just outside the window with flowery plants to attract butterflies. I would place my computer here and work. With the warmth of the sun gently upon my face, I would write the sequels to my current novel, Evolution of a Sad Woman. At my back would be my desk, piled high with all my research materials and books. How happy I would be.

The knowledge and talent of the centuries will surround me. On my bookshelves will be books by Agatha Christie, Mark Twain, James Michener, Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Homer. How amazing it would be to have ages of talent surrounding me – inspiring me.

I would add all the wonders of today with works from Stephen King, John Grisham, Danielle Steel, Sue Grafton, Michael Crichton, James Patterson, Lori Foster, Lauren Dane, Dan Brown, Patricia Cornwell and Nora Roberts.

Sprinkled among my treasures would be books such as thesauruses, dictionaries, encyclopedias, books of maps and other research books.

Scattered around my wonderful fantasy room would be a large couch where I can lie down and rest for a while and think. There would be large overstuffed, comfortable chairs where you can curl up, read and enjoy one of the wonderful novels of the greats.

In one corner would be a small door that leads to a large walk-in closet. Inside would be file cabinets filled with research materials.

But . . .

For now, since my small one desk and one file cabinet office were destroyed in hurricane Ike, I hold my laptop on my lap, sit in my wing back lounge chair in my living room and write on my next novel. Who knows? Maybe Shakespeare or Christie had to work in similar conditions once upon a time. Maybe Fitzgerald had to beg his family for quiet so he could concentrate. So here I sit with my fantasy office still a fantasy, my laptop weighing heavily on my lap and my next novel pouring from my fingers.

I guess we all have dreams.

For more information about Gale Laure or her international selling novel, Evolution of a Sad Woman, visit www.galelaure.com or www.evolutionofasadwoman.com (her blog) or do an Internet search for booksellers for this novel.