It’s late now, but I’m still waiting for the caffeine of the last litre or so of Earl Grey (I lost count but I’m guessing 5 litres at least in total yesterday) and the sugar rush from the last chocolate milk (1.5 litres or all after 21:00) to wear off. So what better way to spend the time than another little musing.
I actually started trying to write this on Friday, but figured a second musing on one day would be too much like procrastination to be allowed. So I postponed it. I will now take you back on Friday however for a very simple reason.
It was Friday afternoon and I’d just about decided I didn’t need to go shopping. Then I noticed I was missing one thing, and that changed my mind. “What was that one thing?” you ask – very kind of you to show and interest, by the way.
Well I’ll tell you a secret, though possibly not a big one given that you’ll have read the subject line: I went because I was out of candles. I had exactly one left, and maybe 2 hours of burn left on the ones that had already been going the night before. Which gave me a bit of a problem since I tend to write with at least three candles burning.
In fact I’ll often try to limit the amount of electric light while I write, to get as much of it as possible coming from the candles. This can go to the extend of toning down my screen’s brightness as far as it will go without becoming impossible to write with. It has also, the last few days, got to the point where I’ll place several tealights on my desk to read the paper notes I’m using this year rather than switching on my desk lamp.
I have to admit I haven’t a clue why this seems to help, but the fact of the matter is that is does appear to help, somehow. I couldn’t proof it scientifically, but I just feel I get more words in when writing by candle light. It way well be nothing more than a superstition, I don’t really care as long as it keeps working.
*looks over her shoulder* I feel like someone’s watching. You have just exactly described the setup of my desk. I’ve got two large candles and three tea-lights sitting here.
As you, I am trying not to use up too much electricity for two reasons: 1) I am too much an environmentalist. 2) I find the candle light creates somewhat of a special aura – like writers centuries back who were hunched over their papers late at night. It helps me to mask my surroundings and get lost in the world I created for my story. Yesterday, I didn’t use the candles, I don’t even know why, and see – my word count dropped. So, candles it is again tonight.
*checks one more time for hidden cameras around desk*
I have been known to vary the number of candles as well, though three is a pretty steady setup for me. I got all the way up to 5 big candles and 10 tealights a couple of years back while struggling with writers block.
As for all these coincidences, it is getting a bit freaky isn’t it? Maybe I should stop walking around in my boxershorts for extended periods of time after I shower just to be on the safe side…
Anyway, back to the candles, I’m pretty sure I first started consciously using them while writing fantasy, to somehow match the period setting, but I find they help with Sci-Fi as well. For one thing they’re already outdated as a pure form of lighting, so chances are they’ll stick around in the future as well. They are in a word timeless, so they work whatever your setting may be.
Alright, candles are on the ‘synchronicities’ list, boxershorts aren’t
My only issue with candles is that sometimes their light (if I don’t like to lighten all of them) ain’t enough to illuminate my keyboard. While I don’t need to look at the keyboard, sometimes – usually when it gets quite late – I start missing keys and I need to look to just place my fingers on the right spots again. The fact that at work (=8-9 hours of the day) I have to work with an US keyboard, but using the virtual German layout, is not helping at all. It gets confusing and keep hitting the wrong keys. So, I am still trying to figure out how many candles make the best setup.
Somehow I’d guessed boxershorts wouldn’t make the list
In my case I don’t have the keyboard problem very much, because my keyboard has little raised bumps on the F and the J, which tells me where my index fingers should go and where the home row is. (There’s also one on the numeric keypad’s five for when I want to use that.)
Having said that you could do what I do to be able to read my notes. I have the tealights sitting on the actual service of the desk, pretty close to each other. That’s also, as I remember it, enough to leave my keyboard legible throughout the night.
I have the bumps on the keyboard as well, but I can’t really feel them with my left index finger. Too much playing the guitar, I guess. The skin has become less sensitive there due to the metal strings my finger always needs to press down.
As the day is cloudy, I have lightened the candles about one and a half hour ago. I am still experimenting where to place them. If I place them right behind my keyboard – where they would give me the best light – my TFT gets too much heat from below. On my right is my tablet (mouse replacement) and for reason lights on my left irritate me.
I guess I will need to try out some alternatives until I am fully satisfied.
I’ve got an advantage in that my TFT is quite a way above the main desk so there’s plenty of room under there for the tea lights. The notes I’ve got taped to the wall are actually below the TFT. My main candles are up on the same platform/shelf that also has my TFT on it, two of them left of it, and on of them to the right.
[...] to the bathroom, not to mention reading up on Jarsto’s posts about things that seem like he’s taken them directly from my mind), so I could’ve done more if I had been more disciplined. That leads me to 26,414 [...]
I need a bigger desk! Well, since my company is moving in december, maybe they are willing to give some of the old desks away. They are awesome, but cost about 900 Euros apiece. Maybe they will even throw some of the older chairs away, which I absolutely love. They are about 650 Euros, but they are PERFECT. you can work in them for ten hours straight and not get sore.
Until then … I should probably clean up my desk. That would make space for candles.
I’ve got a pretty big desk, built it myself actually, years ago. It’s slightly kidney shaped, so I’m somewhat surrounded by desk when I get right up close (better support under the arms), and it’s big. Well reasonably big anyway, the basic footprint is 1.60 metres by 80 centimetres.
Also I made some shelf like thing to sit on it (it’s complicated to explain exactly what it is) to give me more storage, but also to lift my TFT and a few other things off the desk. That leaves more of the actual desk free, although it does tend to fill up with junk.
Making sure my desk is relatively clear in late October is actually one of my pre-NaNo rituals. And one that generally seems at least some continued efforts during November. I probably should just start keeping it tidy all year round, but somehow though I may plan to do that it just never seems to work out that way.
Oh, you are technically inclined? You don’t plan a trip to Germany soon, by any chance? If you do, fancy bringing your tools with you to make another desk?
I know that my set up is less than perfect, I own countless hours of physiotherapy to it. But I have just started to hunt down the colleague responsible for the relocation of our stuff during the move into the new building. Hopefully she will tell me that there will be spare desks and/or chairs … *fingers crossed*
I wouldn’t actually say I’m that technically inclined when it comes to this sort of thing, though I suppose as the desk is coming up on a decade or so of service now I can’t complain. The real trick is to have a design worked out right down to all the parts. Most DIY stores (at least most of the ones here in NL) will quite happily cut any straight lines for you.
It may cost a couple of euros on top of the cost of the wood/mdf, but unless you add any curves or really weird cuts to your design it means you can design & build stuff with little more trouble than assembling flatpack furniture.
I’ve actually got a designs for a new one in the works (any excuse to mess around with 3d CAD software after all
) which would only keep one of the curves I had in my present one. To be precise I’d want to keep the one I sit in. Having a desk that extends around you to the sides, even a little, is an incredible boost to the amount of support your arms get.
Well, it’s not that I wouldn’t have the possibility to make a desk of my own, but even if I get the wood cut, I have absolutely no tools (I used to, but somehow they all stayed with the ex-significant other). Right now, I don’t even own a hammer, which makes putting nails into walls (to put up pictureframes) quite the hard task. So far, I’ve resorted to maltreat the cans of cat food, but only to a limited success. I somehow doubt they would be suitable for making a desk
What I want most is a wide desk … meaning I can put my arms on it all the way and don’t have to have support for them anywhere else. And I need a low desk. I am just 1.64m tall, and most desks are suited for people around 1.70 or 1.80. That forces me to sit in a rather awkward position most of the time, tensing up my shoulders and neck.
Unfortunately, the furniture of our old offices won’t be for sale. Too bad, it’s just perfect.
Well tools can of course be bought along with the wood. Or you can try to borrow some (I’ve got a friend whose tools and workshop I could use, should I want to make a new one myself).
Other than that you seem to be after the exactly things I was after when I designed my desk. Though in my case most desks are too low for me. At 187 I have to keep my arms hovering above most desks rather than having them rest on there.
And while 80 by 160 isn’t huge, its larger than most desks and, combined with the shelve to raise the TFT off the desk, means there’s more than enough room to rest my arms. In fact while I do have pretty long arms (I usually have to buy shirts with the sleeves 5 centimetres longer than standard for a comfortable fit) I could probably get all of them onto the desk if it were at shoulder height.
And as you may have guessed, the difference between that and those hideous “computer bureau” contraptions they sell – with the pull out keyboard shelf that means you arms have no support at all – is like the difference between night and day. I’ve never owned one of those abominations to begin with, but I wouldn’t like to think what my arms might feel like after a 16k day on one of those.
Too bad about the old office furniture not being available. I may just have to start planning a trip to Germany to help you out
I am too cheap to buy tools
I rather spent that money on really important things like Babylon 5 books from Cafepress, iPods, iTunes music or any other kind of books. One has to have priorities … and my back and shoulders remind me after every typing sessions that I got mine wrong.
A colleague of mine is just about 192 and he actually had his desk propped up on little squares he had made out of wood for quite a while. That way he raised the desk by about fifteen centimeters. Due to health reasons he now got a desk which he can – electronically – move up or down by about a meter!
My desk is acutually such an ‘abomination’ with an extra keyboard shelf. Only that I never even attached the one that was delivered with the desk. My usual writing position – at home as well as in the office – is more horizontal than vertical. I usually glide so far under the table that the table itself rests against the upper part of my chest, just beneath my armpit, keeping me from sliding beneath it (not that this hasn’t happened before
). That way, my arms rest on the desk from the shoulder on. Thanks to our excellent chairs at work I can be in that position for hours and feel great. At home, not really.
When you finish your travel plans, let me know. I might get to borrow a tool or two and wood from my dad so you won’t have to bring your own
I tend to get pretty far into the desk as well, though in my case that means it hits me in the stomach, so not much chance of sliding under it. Sometimes I forget to do this, and my arms tend to pay the price. But when I do it right I get my arms on the desk from the elbow down – further if I lean back a little, and I can keep going for hours without any trouble at all.
It somehow just struck me as how strange I would have regarded this kind of conversation ten years ago. Back then, I wasn’t spending nearly as much time on the desk – let alone computer – as today and work place ergonomics was a topic I couldn’t even spell. A decade later, with all the new technology widening our grasp on the world, I find myself bound to a desk for most of the day and suddenly a comfortable chair and desk become all important. Funny how things change (and how old one gets).
Had they even discovered RSI ten years ago? I was still in highschool, but I don’t really remember hearing about it much back then, and certainly not a lot before then. Now you just have to say RSI and everyone at work understands why you use a trackball instead of a mouse. And just about anyone you meet can converse on the subjects of desk-height and chair comfort. I can’t help thinking “maybe someone should have labelled the future: some assembly required.”
Yes, some ‘plagues’ come with the stage of technological development a society reaches … as a sociologist I could go on about that endlessly, but I won’t
And to continue with our (new) tradition of quoting B5: “Well, it’s an imperfect universe.”
(BTW, great quote you picked for this topic)
[...] me personally, light is an important factor to get me into the right mood (fortunately, I am not the only one). I found that darkness paired with candlelight gives me the best atmosphere. Now, this might also [...]