The Evolving Writer's Office

by M. L. Buchman

I was recently asked about my writer's office.

Last week I had a Zoom meeting with one of my writer's groups (we normally meet monthly over brunch), and we had a chance to see each other's offices for the first time. One was a beautiful, wood paneled space with art on the walls, another was a dining room table (because of other things happening in his normal office at the moment), and a third was a beautiful cloister surrounded in tall bookcases. And then there was mine.

But before I get to that, I started thinking about the evolution of my office over time. I think it says a lot about me as a writer. Or maybe not (I do tend to overthink everything). But I figured I'd take you on that brief journey anyway.

Book One
I wrote my first book while on a solo bicycle trip around the world in 1993-1994. It was written in the Australian Outback, wandering through Indonesian losmens (hostels), cheap Indian hotels, and finally finished on a freezing Greek beach.

A typical early office; this one in Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia. An array of bike paraphernalia, a short-wave radio (probably tuned to Russia's great jazz station or New Guinea's excellent rock and roll), and my mighty writing computer that I'd picked up in Singapore. It ran 40 hours on 3 AA batteries and could store 100k words. It weighed in at just 1 pound, an essential consideration on a bicycle trip.

The Next Three Offices
Curiously,  despite quite a bit of searching, I have no office photos over the next 19 years. Still not quite sure how that happened, except that we aren't a very camera-tied family. Each family album took years to fill.

Apartment Office: No photo because it was nothing exciting. A corner of a Seattle apartment where I recrafted my first book and wrote my next two.

Loft Office: When I moved in, my wife and step-kid set me up in a lovely little office. It was small, cramped, and baking hot in the summer as it was tucked up in one corner of the living room's cathedral ceiling with no windows that opened. It is still my favorite ever. Why? Because it had a peek-a-boo view down into the living room so that I could watch my new family and feel a part of what was happening even when deep in a book.

Island Office: In 2002, I designed and built a house on a piece of property that I'd bought a decade before but never developed up in Washington State's lovely islands. Because it was planned from the mud up, I designed a "real writer's" office. It had two large desks--writing and everything else. The walls were wrapped in floor-to-ceiling bookcases plus a peninsula of more back-to-back bookcases across the middle of the room. In the cubby that created, I had a luxurious reading and thinking leather chair and ottoman wrapped in books. And the view was awesome.

Curiously, it actually didn't work at all for me, because I felt so cut off from my family on another floor in the great room. I eventually moved into a small, awkward space with much less of a view, but close by the great room and was much happier.

The Traveling Years
Courtesy of the 2008 recession, our feet were cut out from under us. In just 2 years, I went from being a department manager at our county's #2 employer to living in the poorest county in the state. Our firm went from four hundred employees to bankrupt so fast it made our head spin (the wrong time to be in the housing industry).

Portland Office: I found a job in Portland, Oregon, rented out the island home, and made a spot in the back corner of a noisy apartment. A space I'd rather forget. But my office had begun taking on its present form. No room for the big desks and only a half-dozen bookcases, I shifted to an IKEA chair and a rolling laptop desk. (This was also when my first traditional novels were seeing the market for the first time. I had 2 small press titles and a half dozen indies, but none of them were doing much.)
Oregon Coast #1: When that job too went away, still in the recession, my first novels were finally taking off. My first indie novel in that series, Daniel's Christmas, really found traction. We cut and ran, sold the island home for half what it was worth to cut expenses, and jumped to the coast. Landing in an awful rental (we were broke and in a hurry), I did get a decent office.

A bookcase and file cabinets around the corner. The IKEA chair that I still use today and my laptop on a rolling stand with the keyboard in my lap.
Oregon Coast #2: A far cozier setup. I was in a corner of the nice apartment's master bedroom by day, and happy as could be (even though the view was from the living room). For six years I wrote dozens of novels and many more short stories from right here.

The Present
We had hoped to move to England for a few years. So, we made drastic changes. All file cabinets went away. Bookcases too. All business records and photo albums went electronic. Over ten years we went from twenty bookcases all packed to the gills (and many, many cases of stored books), to three bookcases barely half full.

The visa to England failed, but we did end up moving across the country to the North Shore of Massachusetts. I grew up nearby and my wife's mom was from eastern Canada (fits her to a tee). Our life's belongings had been whittled down to fit within a 7'x8' storage pod. So had my office.

This is my current office. Same chair, same rolly desk. Newer laptop and an exceptional Kinesis Advantage Pro keyboard. Behind the chair in my microphone and music stand that I move into the bathroom for recording audiobooks.

 Here's the opposite view. A little shelf under my computer has my Macbook Air (for Vellum) and a Microsoft Surface that I use whenever writing out of the house. A trackpad is clipped to the chair arm for mousing around. The towel over the chair arm is just right for propping the keyboard comfortably in my lap. Earbuds for music, Licorice the Writing Cat (a long ago gift from my kid) sits on the power button to watch me write, a manuscript stand because my wife still uses a red pen on printed pages to edit, and a pewter ring that has been on my desk since the day I started writing, inscribed with the words: "The secret of success is constancy to purpose." - Benjamin Disraeli.

My Office (Officeial?) Thoughts
I can write anywhere. Under any conditions. Small wonder after all these different offices. I wander out of the house, several times a week with my Surface, and just settle in.

If I have fifteen or more minutes (that's about how long it takes me to plunge deeply into a story), I'm good. Noise? I'm lost in my story what do I care. Rain, snow, windstorm... I'm in Aspen, Catalina, and Baja (for the Miranda Chase #4 book I just finished 48 hours ago). By this afternoon, I expect to be in a jungle for my next short story. A comfortable, ultra-ergonomic setup, or perched on the edge of a bar stool (pre-social distancing days) while waiting for a friend to come join me? All good. In these days of isolation, I go and park somewhere with a great view and settle happily into the passenger seat for hours on end.

For me, a writing office has been boiled down to me and my connection with the story. Everything else is extra.

One More Piece
There is one other key element to my office, my brag shelf (one of our 3 half-full bookcases). It holds one copy of everything I've ever written. I need it when I'm doubting myself (something I always do at some point(s) in a book). I go and stand in front of it, often for an hour or more, just to remind myself that I can do this for just one more book.

What's your connection to your office? I'd love to hear how you think of it. (Photos too?)

USA Today and Amazon #1 Bestseller M. L. "Matt" Buchman has 60+ action-adventure thriller and military romance novels, 100 short stories, and lotsa audiobooks. PW says: “Tom Clancy fans open to a strong female lead clamor for more.” Booklist declared: “3X Top 10 of the Year.” A project manager with a geophysics degree, he’s designed and built houses, flown and jumped out of planes, solo-sailed a 50’ sailboat, and bicycled solo around the world…and he quilts. More at: www.mlbuchman.com.