Write Place, Write Time

Joey Comeau

I write in my bedroom, on the edge of my bed. This is also where I read, watch television, and play video games. When I’m struggling with a problem in a book, I turn on some familiar music and lay down and look up at the ceiling until my brain figures it out. You are supposed to have a separate area for sleeping and working, I think. It helps your brain develop a pattern. “When I’m here, I go into this mode.” Like, in the bedroom go into sleep mode. In the office go into work mode. But my brain doesn’t do that. I sleep for hours during the day, then wake up at 3am to finish a chapter. On the wall there’s a picture of me and my dad, one of those fake old time pictures from Niagara Falls. There’s a Jim Henson stuffed mouse from the Bear in the Big Blue House, you can see my two big Patricia Highsmith biographies on that shelf, along with 5 seasons of Criminal Minds, and about a dozen chess books. Up higher is a Dinosaur Comics book and Taiyo Matsumoto’s GOGO Monster. On the bed are a book on AI methods, a dummies guide to Statistics, and a Kindle, along with pills and mail. On my desk you can see my computer and a bowl of candy.

Joey Comeau creates the comic A Softer World with Emily Horne. His novel, One Bloody Thing After Another, was nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award. His previous books include Overqualified, Bible Camp Bloodbath, and The Girl Who Couldn’t Come. You can read his newest project online, a book with illustrator Jess Fink, about best friends, called We Are Become Pals.