Matt Cairns workspace 1My diamond workspace

I work in a diamond-shaped room, roughly ten by ten feet.

And when I say diamond-shaped I really mean it. Not like the diamond on a playing card (basically a slightly stretched square turned on its point) but the precious sort. You know, flat at the top with two really short sides at each end and two really long ones forming a downward triangle. The sort a crook holds up to the light in a bad heist movie. The funny thing is that I’ve only just realized it now, while writing this text. Five years of being in here, all day most days, and I pretty much thought it was square. How’s that for observant? I should be a writer…

It has a desk, which I guess makes it an office instead of just a room. Or does me working there make it an office? What if there wasn’t a desk, and I lay on the floor with my laptop? What if a tree fell outside, and I wasn’t inside to hear it?

There are two windows, both with blinds. Apparently you shouldn’t have a view, as it distracts you from the work, so I keep the blinds lowered. The door is mostly glass, so I bought a blind to cover it—partly for the same reason as the windows, but also for when I surf porn on my break. Just kidding. I don’t take breaks.

I have a radio, which I sometimes have on, sometimes not. Depends how busy my mind is.

There’s a guitar, which I don’t know how to play, but looks pretty cool against the wall. Makes it all seem more ‘arty’. Creative. Maybe one day I’ll learn how to use it.

As previously alluded to, I do my work on a laptop.

I can’t sit straight, or look directly at the screen, on account of my movement disorder. So I write in a kind of slump, off to one side, resting my elbows on a blanket. It isn’t pretty, or comfortable, but it works.

And that’s all that matters.

Matt Cairns

Matt Cairns grew up reading action and fantasy novels. As an ex-soldier and ex-cop, he needed to write a story he wanted to read. A mix of crime and crack soldier. Bad folk vs. small town. With an element of the unreal… He grew up in such a place: a small military town called Waiouru, where he spent his childhood roaming the local woods and countryside. He soldiered there, and later policed it, often on his own. In the depths of winter Waiouru snows, at times heavily enough to isolate it from the outside world. There’s nothing better, thriller or horror, than snow soaked in blood. This is the setting for Cold Blooded… Cairns has also written a semi-autobiographical nonfiction book titled “How To Live With Anxiety, Depression, and A Little Known Condition Called Cervical Dystonia”, which he describes as a sort of “profile extension” He can be found on Facebook and Twitter.