1 – Noise-cancelling earmuffs. These are supposed to be for shooting guns. I use them for writing. I like to think there are similarities between the two. These have changed my life. It’s easier to lose yourself in your work with these. If I don’t wear them I have to hear all the sirens, shouting, bad reggae (is there any other kind?) blasting out of windows or cars idling on curbs, negative critics, and other noise pollution, and it’s all very distracting.

2 - Fan letters, positive things people have said. To keep morale up in the face of resistance. Also things my hero writers have said that I need to keep in mind. For example, Faulkner’s Noble Prize speech.

3 - Guitar. Electric. Primarily for shredding, wailing.

4 - Top secret folders of ideas, notes, curious news stories, etc.

5 - Curtains. Parted only enough to let in the daylight. On the other side is New York City, middle of the Universe. One time I was out front of my building and the oddball across the street came up to me and said, What are you working on? He’d been watching me from his window. Now I keep the curtains closed. Also, don’t want any criminals seeing my piggybank and getting any ideas.

6 - Typewriter. I have to keep the cover off it because the ribbon spools don’t fit quite right and so I need to sort of smack them back into place with my fist now and again while working. I like how it looks this way too, without the cover – a nefarious machine. Most people these days only use typewriters to be twee and adorable, but I just have always used one. I found one in my basement when I was a kid and it was more exciting to write on it than to write on a computer or by hand. A typewriter goes hand in hand for writing with me. It separates writing from everything else I do, gets me in the right headspace. Using a word processor makes me feel homogenous, because I am looking at exactly the same thing every other writer is looking at at that moment. A word processor makes me feel like I am just dumping more feeble words into the nethersphere that’s already overstuffed with them. And I hate the sound of typing on a computer, especially a Macbook. Such a timid, weak, ineffectual sound. Tit-tit-tit. Bloodless. Weeny. I need noise and physicality. I need to annoy the neighbors.

7 - Milk crate. I stole this from outside a Safeway fifteen years ago. Since then it has been everything from a TV stand to guitar-shit box and, now, desk accessory.

8. Piggybank. This is where I put all the money I make from writing. In a few years I hope to have enough to buy a hammer.

9 - Current work in progress. How’s it coming along? Depends what day it is you ask me.

10 - Coffee cup. From Woodman’s in Essex, MA – the inventor of the fried clam. Go there.

11 - Drafts and other things I work on regularly.

12 - Obscene Post-its. A gift from a friend. They say, variously: FUCK, SHIT, PUSSY, BALLS. I use them as a bookmark sometimes and wait for the person next to me on the train’s eyes to wander over -- then quickly wander away.

13 - Chair I rarely sit in. I like to stand up. Yeah, assholes tend to stand up at their desks more than non-assholes – but I like to think I’m one of the latter. I’m probably wrong.

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