Reassuring Places

This is a cross-post from the Wyrdsmiths blog. One of the commenters there asked:

I was reading a writing magazine the other day and they did a feature asking writers if they had any "essentials" they kept in their writing spaces and/or any pre-writing rituals that helped encourage them to get down to business. For example, one man kept a little aquarium on his desk that he said helped him feel so tranquil, he could just shut off the rest of the world for awhile in order to write. If anyone...