Where I Write: Susan McCorkindale

Filed under: Fun Stuff

Our favorite authors give us a peek into the space where they write, research and yes, procrastinate. Today, we get a glimpse of 500 Acres and No Place to Hide author Susan McCorkindale's window-facing desk that looks out on to her Virginia farm.

Where do I write? Anywhere, any time, with whatever's at hand. A pen, pencil, even shh,
don't tell my Mother, a marker. The poor woman still hasn't recovered from the bright
red "Manny & Me 4 Ever" hearts I drew all over the white baseboard in my bedroom.
And the fact that the relationship lasted two minutes but the hearts hung in through three
fresh coats of paint didn't help.


I write wherever I find myself, and whenever something strikes me as funny. Most of
the time I work at my desk, of course, but as my desk is in the living room, in front of
a window that overlooks one of our pastures, I'm usually distracted by some kind of
wildlife shenanigans. Stuff like cattle fornicating on my front lawn, hunks of groundhog
being spirited away by a phalanx of turkey buzzards, or a tree branch. I know; a tree
branch isn't wildlife. But when you've been staring at it and suddenly realize it's staring
back--and slithering away--take my word for it, it's wild.

For maximum distraction and, ultimately, maximum productivity, I stop watching our
critters from a safe distance and do something that's still relatively new for me: I venture
out to commune with them. I grab my laptop and head into the fields, the barn, or, if I'm
feeling exceptionally feisty, the hen house. The birds eyeball me, I eyeball them, and
we all take notes. Sure, I'd love to know what they're saying, but really, who can read
chicken scratch?

Speaking of chicken scratch, one of my favorite places to write is in the car. This isn't so
bad when I'm parked or sitting at a stoplight. It's when I'm driving that things get a
little dicey. And I'm not talking about texting; that you get a ticket for. I'm talking about
good, old-fashioned paper and penciling, (or penning, or marker­ing, or yes, even crayon-­ing because, as I've already confessed, I'm an equal opportunity writing implement
employer), for which you get a warning and sometimes (surprise!) an audience.


Hey, some people try their stuff out in clubs. I try mine out on cops. Shoot me.

There are, in fact, two different police officers who were treated to snippets of 500 Acres
and No Place to Hide while I was writing it (in the aforementioned chicken scratch) on
the backs of Cosi receipts, dry cleaning tickets, napkins from Cracker Barrel, those New
Testament-­length printouts that come with prescriptions and, occasionally, post­-surgical
care instructions. That's because these nice, patient policemen patrol Route 66, the
highway my husband and I drove several times a week while he underwent treatment for
pancreatic cancer at Georgetown University Hospital and the Lombardi Comprehensive
Cancer Center. One of them actually pulled me over twice, the second time offering to
arrest me if it would help me make my deadline.

As an orange jumpsuit would look like crap against my complexion and jail is the one
place I know I couldn't cobble two words together, I politely declined. And put my pen
away.

Before you get to thinking I should have my license revoked or at the very least slapped
with a restraining order barring me from buying as much as a box of chalk, I'd just like
to point out that in the scope of things, very little of 500 Acres and No Place to Hide was
written while racing down the highway to the hospital.

On the contrary, most of it was written in the hospital.

I outlined "Cluckster's Last Stand" sitting in the emergency room, (alternately writing,
reading it aloud to my husband, and rattling off his health history to at least two
dozen different people), did a full first draft of "Children of the Cheetos" during one
exceptionally long delay in the radiology department, and put the finishing touches
on "I'd Like to Have a Word with John Wayne" on one of the many Tuesdays we spent in
the infusion center. As you can imagine, most folks don't do too much cracking up during
chemo. But we always did.

I also wrote a good deal of it in my husband's various hospital rooms, either in the
recliner next to him, or sitting cross­legged on his bed, my laptop plopped on his pillow,
keeping his spot warm while I waited for him to return from one test or procedure or
another. Sometimes he was awake when he came back, and he'd ask me to regale him
with whatever I'd been working on (particularly if, as they rolled him in, he caught me
typing at light speed and laughing like a hyena). Most of the time he'd laugh too, and I'd
breathe a huge sigh of relief. But if he simply said, 'Suz, what have you got for pain?' I'd
ask the nurse for a double dose. And hit "delete."

Since his death in April, I do a good deal of writing at my husband's desk. Sure, I sit
at my own and still, scofflaw that I am, write my funniest stuff on the road, but I like
sitting at his. It makes me feel close to him to sit in his chair, surrounded by his baseball
collectibles, New Yorker calendar, and little piles of post­-it notes covered in the titles of
books he wanted to read. His handwriting makes my heart ache, but his keyboard makes
me mad as hell. The "b" prints twice, the "n" not at all unless I jab at it, and the spacebar
sticks. The whole time he was sick, I thought the disease had destroyed his ability to
spell. To find out now that he just needed a new keyboard makes me want to cry. And
laugh. And read this entire thing to him.

I think he'd have liked it. And if he didn't? There's always the "delete" key and a couple
of leftover Vicodin.

 

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