Writers are weird. We all have our quirks—our little preferences that inspire us and help us get into the creative mindset, whether it's a favorite kind of pen or notebook, a "most creative" time of day, a certain kind of music… or no sound at all.

I'm no exception.

I've blogged about my old office before, the one I had in the tiny bedroom in our single-wide mobile home in college. I decorated it like a forest—silk ferns and branches of silk dogwood flowers flanking my desk, and silk garlands e...