I'd always done my writing using an old desktop computer running windows 98 which resides in a large, oak roll top desk in a quiet corner of an upstairs room in my home.   In front of the desk is an incredibly comfortable high backed leather chair.  When I sit down and plug my Creative Zen loaded with over 400 various pieces of music into my ears I'm instantly in writing mode and, after quickly reviewing where I left off, am able to proceed with my novel completely disconnected from the rest of the world.  This had been my writing mode for years but, instead of just grabbing an occasional hour or two here and there, I wondered if I might be just as productive using my business laptop.  After all, I use if for my research and I used it when I edited and reviewed the blocking drafts of Wolf At The Threshold that my publisher sent to me.  So I tried an experiment..  My first idea was to sit at my desk and allow the classical music station that we play on the radio in the office to drown out extraneous sounds.  Cindi was true to her promise not to disturb me but I found myself frequently drifting back into business mode and wanting to checking my email.   Concluding I wasn't going to be able to write in the office, I took my laptop outside and sat in the shade of the umbrella at the table surrounded by hundreds of colorful flowers in my English garden and, entertained by the chirps and squawks of numerous birds frequenting the two feeders, began to write.  I managed a paragraph but then found myself watching the birds, delighting in the details of their antics though my writer's eyes and creating stories about them.  It then hit me.  When I enter writing mode my senses become acute and, if I don't have myself contained and focused, I'm going to drift all over the place.  Wonderful for research and inspiration, lousy for production.  I needed my writing desk.  The words up on the large screen of my obsolete computer and the music from my ear buds enable me to remain completely absorbed in the book I'm writing and, completely disconnected from the world around me, I can be incredibly prolific.   Quirky?  Perhaps, but I'm quite willing to admit something.  I like it.  When I settle into my write environment and enter writing mode I am there with my characters, seeing what they see, feeling how they feel and I tap away at the keyboard with absolutely no sense of time.  Today I sat like that for over four undisturbed hours and just emerged with a completed chapter, ready for a cup of tea and shocked at where the time went.