Writing Spaces: Pack Your Towel

Thanks for your patience last week, while I traveled to New York, slipped past incoming and outgoing snowstorms, met my fab agent in real life*, and temporarily relieved my east coast nostalgia. I'm back to work and back to posting, starting with today's tribute to one of my favorite writers and the man who brought us the answer to life, the universe, and everything: Douglas Adams!

I actually thought about Douglas Adams on my trip, when I realized I had broken the cardinal rule of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and forgotten to pack a towel (less a problem at my parents' house, but when I stayed with friends in the city I had to use combination beach towel and old laundry).

I looked around for pictures of Adams in his office and mostly came up short. The best I could do were these pictures, the first of Adams relaxing in his Santa Barbara home (because when you're a writer and can afford it, why wouldn't you live in the warmest, most beautiful places in the world?).

And this one, where Adams' half brother James Thrift leans against the Shaftesbury, North Dorset desk on which Adams wrote Hitchhikers.

Of course, thanks to Google, we have a desk any hitchhiker would be proud of, complete with towel, cup of tea, and the guide itself, with Adams famous (and highly useful) advice: DON'T PANIC.



*There was a moment as I was striding down Fifth Avenue, dodging tourists and saying to a friend on the phone "Can I call you back? I have to meet my agent for lunch," that I realized my life was the most movie-about-a-plucky-writer-who-finds-success-in-NYC that it had ever been. And then I whacked my hipbone on the subway turnstile it was like welcome back to reality, sucker!