Writers' Touchstones...

[Richard Sutton]

I suspect that among you writerly types, are some who make use of touchstones. Objects that when kept nearby or within reach, help tickle your muse. Of course, the magic is all in our own minds, but still the feeling I have when I withdraw the most recent addition to my collection, seen below hanging near my keyboard, and let the sun run along it... well, it is hard to convey in exact language how I'm moved to create word pictures. What of .
yours? C'mon... I know you have 'em...

 

[Alistair Roberts]

Actually I don't. Not having a real fixed address makes that difficult. However, I do have photos I've made up of characters and places that I've printed off, although I've been seriously thinking of buying a sword (probably an Excalibur replica) so I do have something more physical. Not sure how that'd work for a murder mystery series, but it's just given me an idea....

 

[Chase Gamwell]

I don't really have a touchstone that I keep near, but I like having dice nearby (prefereably one 20 sided in the bunch)...something I can touch or play with while thinking. I guess that works the same way...

 

[Richard Sutton]

Alistair, don't hesitate. You can't believe what it does to your head, gripping a sword and retrieving it from its scabbard... Ooops! I've gone an' scared myself...

 

[Alistair Roberts]

As long as you don't cut yourself!! Although blood could be an inspiration

 

[KG Christopher]

I would love something old and full of its own story, like the head of an animal...a bit like a rabits foot.

I have some very old cigars, but I dont smoke any more but I do love smelling them and having a feel

 

[Patricia D]

A sign on the wall over my computer reminds me that The Reader is Busy. Reading my books has to compete with lots of other time demands. A second sign is in my head. It says, Don't Be Boring. And I should add, there is also a watercolor of people, dressed in proper whites, floating above a maze and playing croquet.

 

[Marc Joan]

Nope, nothing like that. But, bizarrely -- although I don't need it as such - I do like to have a pencil or a pen nearby. Just feel naked without one, somehow. And nobody wants to see that.

 

[Nicole Wilson]

I don't really have one either, though that could be related to the fact that everything I own is within 20 feet from me lol. However, I do have something I *have* to keep away from me, and that's my fracking phone. Waaaaayy too easy for me to get distracted.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I recently blogged about mine--some rocks from our beach that speak to me.

 

[Marc Joan]

I recently blogged about mine--some rocks from our beach that speak to me.

Do they have gravelly voices?

 

[Alistair Roberts]

You really shelled out on that one Marc!!

 

[Robinne Weiss]

No, but they think I take them for granite. They think I treat them schist-y.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

Actually, I'm very gneiss to them.

 

[Marc Joan]

Actually, I'm very gneiss to them.

GROAN!!!

 

[Chase Gamwell]

*refrains from inserting comment about everyone being on a roll and somehow connecting it to moss*

 

[Alistair Roberts]

Didn't 'sea' that coming....

 

[Diamond]

If coffee mugs count, I have about a dozen touchstones.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

The ultimate touchstones?

 

[Patricia D]

The ultimate touchstones?

My mother used to tell my that my headstone would read "Act in haste; repent at leisure" I think that would work for lots of us.

 

[J. Rook]

I would love something old and full of its own story, like the head of an animal...a bit like a rabits foot.

I have some very old cigars, but I dont smoke any more but I do love smelling them and having a feel

How old are your cigars? I once found an unopened box of cigars from the back of a closet where they had been languishing, forgotten, for about five years. When I opened it all the cigars had been eaten into tobacco flakes. There must have been insect eggs on the leaves when they were first made.

 

[J. Rook]

I suspect that among you writerly types, are some who make use of touchstones. Objects that when kept nearby or within reach, help tickle your muse. Of course, the magic is all in our own minds, but still the feeling I have when I withdraw the most recent addition to my collection, seen below hanging near my keyboard, and let the sun run along it... well, it is hard to convey in exact language how I'm moved to create word pictures. What of .
yours? C'mon... I know you have 'em...

View attachment 1027

I have a lovely touchstone. It sits on the table just to the side of my computer. It's a fossil of a hollardops trilobite, a creature that lived in the ocean about four hundred million years ago. I look at it and I just don't know what to think about it.

 

[KG Christopher]

I have 5 cigars - Romeo y Julieta from Habana, 8 years old. In their own cylanders, one has the seal broken and I use this as my 'snifter' for when I want the smell of tobaco.

 

[James Marinero]

My mother used to tell my that my headstone would read "Act in haste; repent at leisure" I think that would work for lots of us.

On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia...

 

[Jason Byrne]

I suspect that among you writerly types, are some who make use of touchstones. Objects that when kept nearby or within reach, help tickle your muse. Of course, the magic is all in our own minds, but still the feeling I have when I withdraw the most recent addition to my collection, seen below hanging near my keyboard, and let the sun run along it... well, it is hard to convey in exact language how I'm moved to create word pictures. What of .
yours? C'mon... I know you have 'em...

View attachment 1027

I don't really have a touchstone that I keep near, but I like having dice nearby (prefereably one 20 sided in the bunch)...something I can touch or play with while thinking. I guess that works the same way...

I have a beautiful one-handed, HCS battle-ready broadsword that means as much to me, but it's still in pawn. You do what you've got to do.

Back in my GURPS days, I carried 3d6 with me everywhere, and clicked them over each other in my hand any time I was thinking about something.

This moment, the closest thing I have is this:

It's a component of a ceiling projector lens assembly that I ripped apart. I keep it in the arm-pocket of my jacket, and there are lots of times throughout the day I'll reach up and touch it, feel against the side of my arm that it's still there; it's a good-luck charm. Kind of a weird choice, but I'd had it there for months.

Here's a picture of other pieces I have sitting on my desk:

 

[Richard Sutton]

I have a lovely touchstone. It sits on the table just to the side of my computer. It's a fossil of a hollardops trilobite, a creature that lived in the ocean about four hundred million years ago. I look at it and I just don't know what to think about it.

I've got a Moroccan trilobite fossil, too. I have a deep need to handle stuff. If I'm writing a scene that describes a pine cone, I generally find one and hold it for a while.

 

[Richard Sutton]

For many years, when we had our trading business, I owned a very heavy triangular Navajo tooled cuff bracelet. It was very similar to the ancient Viking "mony cuffs". Eventually someone saw it on my wrist and made an offer I couldn't refuse... but I should have. No body makes them that way any more... phooey!

Re: tobacco. I no longer smoke cigars, but the smell of a burning cigar seems to be very evocative to new ideas. I also keep a couple of old briar pipes handy. My Dad's been gone twelve years no. He always had his pipe handy, so when he died, I bought a big can of his favorite tobacco blend, which now, I fire up when I think of him or h=need his opinion... almost works, too.

 

[Nicole Wilson]

I have a beautiful one-handed, HCS battle-ready broadsword that means as much to me, but it's still in pawn. You do what you've got to do.

Back in my GURPS days, I carried 3d6 with me everywhere, and clicked them over each other in my hand any time I was thinking about something.

This moment, the closest thing I have is this:
View attachment 1040
It's a component of a ceiling projector lens assembly that I ripped apart. I keep it in the arm-pocket of my jacket, and there are lots of times throughout the day I'll reach up and touch it, feel against the side of my arm that it's still there; it's a good-luck charm. Kind of a weird choice, but I'd had it there for months.

Here's a picture of other pieces I have sitting on my desk:
View attachment 1041

Where's the stormtrooper helmet??

 

[Boopadoo]

I have an old Smith Corona typewriter that was my father's. We're talking 1940's old. The "H" doesn't work and some of the letters drop, but it it still makes that noise...

Some of my earliest memories involve that old typewriter. In a modest, 4-bedroom house with 11 kids, my dad never had the luxury of an office or den. He would instead work off one side of my parents' king-sized bed, sitting in an old rocking chair, using a handmade (he was a woodworker by trade) hardwood chessboard as a desktop for handwriting signatures. This was the only reason he would write by hand, because next to the chessboard would always be his old Smith-Corona Silent-Super typewriter. He typed everything; letters, checks, list, memos, you name it. While he clacked away, as long as I stayed quiet and didn't shake the bed while he signed something, I was allowed to play with my matchbox cars on the opposite side of the bed. I've always loved that sound. It makes me think of him, and of carefree days.

Click-clack, click-clack-click, I really miss my dad.

So, every now and then, when I'm feeling lost and the words won't come, I pull out the typewriter just to make the noise for a little while.

Click-clack, click-clack-click, all is right with the world.

 

[Boopadoo]

I have an old Smith Corona typewriter that was my father's. We're talking 1940's old. The "H" doesn't work and some of the letters drop, but it it still makes that noise...

Some of my earliest memories involve that old typewriter. In a modest, 4-bedroom house with 11 kids, my dad never had the luxury of an office or den. He would instead work off one side of my parents' king-sized bed, sitting in an old rocking chair, using a handmade (he was a woodworker by trade) hardwood chessboard as a desktop for handwriting signatures. This was the only reason he would write by hand, because next to the chessboard would always be his old Smith-Corona Silent-Super typewriter. He typed everything; letters, checks, list, memos, you name it. While he clacked away, as long as I stayed quiet and didn't shake the bed while he signed something, I was allowed to play with my matchbox cars on the opposite side of the bed. I've always loved that sound. It makes me think of him, and of carefree days.

Click-clack, click-clack-click, I really miss my dad.

So, every now and then, when I'm feeling lost and the words won't come, I pull out the typewriter just to make the noise for a little while.

Click-clack, click-clack-click, all is right with the world.