Where Lucy Tan Writes

I find that stories tend to unlock themselves when looked at indirectly, so I’m always searching for ways to engage my conscious mind and take pressure off the page.

I was living in Madison, Wisconsin when I bought my writing desk. At the time, there was only about three feet of space between my bed and the wall where a desk could go; this was the only one I could find that would fit. The winter I started working on my first novel, I spent a lot of time watching ice gather along the inside of my window. The room wasn’t very well insulated, and I had to microwave my coffee every fifteen minutes. Getting up to pace around the kitchen did my writing brain good.

Now, I live in Seattle. This desk is still in my bedroom, which is a lot warmer but lacks a window view. Above it is a talisman I embroidered to encourage creative flow, an illustration of a sentence from one of my stories drawn by the writer and comic artist Sloane Leung, and a quote by Alphonse Allais: Ne me demandez pas mon âge, il change tout le temps (“Do not ask me my age, it changes all the time”). Below it is about twenty years’ worth of notebooks, filled with diary entries, shards of stories, novel notes, and sketches. Also on the desk is a lavender candle I inherited from one of Charles D’Ambrosio’s writing workshops. He uses candles to get him in the writing mood, and I light mine when I need an extra bit of comfort or luck.

When working, I often keep a knitting project at my feet because it helps to have something to do with my hands. Maybe this is another way of pacing. I find that stories tend to unlock themselves when looked at indirectly, so I’m always searching for ways to engage my conscious mind and take pressure off the page.