Writing Spaces: David Huebert

This week in Writing Spaces, we take a look at the working space of David Huebert, author of “Six Six Two Fifty” in Issue #146.

I keep my writing space, like my mind, a little messy. Sometimes I stroke the fluffy white cat, Moby-Dick. Sometimes—when she gets too eager for keyboard warmth—I exile Moby-Dick. But she has no front claws (not my doing) and she’s overweight (my doing) and she’s not very nimble or svelte. Often she is back on the desk within seconds, usually sleeping on whatever book or piece of scrap paper is most precious at that moment.

Yes, there are scraps here. One reads “Petra’s Dad chews tobacco.” Another: “woozy, bamboozle, skedaddle, window blear.” These are representative. There is one that reads “climax: hydrogen sulfide.” This is top secret, under embargo.

There are books on my desk: The Scent of Oil, Petroleum Refining in Non-Technical Language, Canada’s Victorian Oil Town. These are also top secret, under embargo.

My desk is a Lego-green Ikea number, a step up from the one I had a few years ago, which was a printer on a glass end table (pictured) that has (presumably) permanently corked my spine.

As I write this, my nine-month-old daughter, Rose, is asleep in the next room. Sometimes nap time is a good time for writing. Usually it isn’t. Usually nap time is a time for cleaning and lunch and more cleaning. Sometimes I come in here late at night and type harried sentences in the zombie-blue darkness while the world is quiet and cars hush through the gullet of night. When the wind is fierce it lifts the aluminum lid of the mailbox, sets that tin jaw chattering through my helter-skelter mind.

We’re giving you a behind-the-scenes look into the writing process – straight from the desks (and decks, docks, beds, and favourite hiking trails) of our contributors! Check out the full series here.