Cluttered and chaotic, welcome to my creative space.

Byline: Steve Dennis

OH, THE tyranny of the blank page. What a lot of rubbish. The blank page is nothing to worry about, it will fill itself. Rub your imagination across it and see where it takes you. It's the tyranny of the untidy desk that is gnawing at my soul.

Let me explain. Every Saturday, the Guardian runs a small feature called 'Writers' Rooms', in which someone you should have heard of but haven't describes the appearance, feel and general philosophy of the garret/ bedroom/lock-up garage on the North Circular in which their Muse speaks to them, in which their Art manifests itself, in which they mash the keyboard with their fists while drinking Listerine and crooning Jim Reeves songs in a throaty baritone.

Last week, I found myself reading about Justin Cartwright's writing area and staring at the photograph of it, lined with a library of eminently readable books, well lit, organised, structured, laptop open and ready for work. Then I cried a little. Just a little.

Now, Cartwright is a lauded author, an MBE, a veteran of many novels, documentaries and films. I just write about racehorses. The Guardian would never in its wildest dreams knock on my door and ask to photograph my desk, ask me to explain what it means to me, how it helps me work, how it brings forth my inner beauty so that you, dear reader, can appreciate the journey the words take from my soul to the page. It is just as well.

Who works at a desk like this? It's made of a single pane of toughened glass, supported on two rickety A-frames that were purchased from Ikea. The glass bears witness to hundreds of child's suppers, a palimpsest of spills and smears and dried-up pools of something that might once have been milk. I sincerely hope it was milk, anyway. There's no point cleaning it, because three suppers later it reverts to default. I think there's something growing under my hard drive, but as long as it doesn't short the whole thing out it's not top of my list.

The areas that still retain transparency are covered in Lego, pencils, wires from long-forgotten electrical items, some marbles, loose change (including an alarming selection of defunct currencies), sweet wrappers, paper, more paper, paperbacks, a small tortoiseshell cat, an inexplicably large pile of envelopes that never seems to shrink, several mugs that once contained tea, more paper and an Investec pen. None of it is mine, apart from the cat and the Investec pen, which I brought home from Breakfast with the Stars at Epsom. The pen not the cat, obviously.

There is also a lot of dust, which builds up because in order to undust, everything would first have to be swept away, and that has never happened. A fire hose with a three-time Fireman of the Year on the other end of it wouldn't shift this lot.

The computer itself is old and tired, and frequently goes to sleep without warning. I look upon this as a kind of quality control; if the computer shuts down mid-sentence, it means I must be churning out duff stuff. You might not be surprised to hear that since I started this column it has shut down twice already. A dent on the side of the hard drive is a permanent reminder of the unsavoury scenes that transpired one evening when an Ashley Brook Report simply disappeared without trace, just like Ambrose Bierce, three paragraphs from the end.

THERE is a considerable amount of food lodged in the keyboard, rendering certain keys inoperable. The number between 6 and 8 hasn't worked for ages, and the stripy horse-like beast that prowls the plains of Africa can be only an 'ebra' as far as I'm concerned. Occasionally the cat walks across the keyboard mid-sentence fdjdhtn 6584gvytf mnf gfe like that; even she can't get all the keys to work.

The less said about my chair the better. It's an ergonomist's nightmare and the other cat has annexed my cushion.

My reference library is a simple affair, consisting of a small pile of books stacked on the floor under the desk, in one of the few clear spaces available but, unfortunately, just where they can be kicked over most frequently. Many of them have been sent to me by people correcting mistakes I have made in print, in order that I might not do so again. The Dowager Duchess of Devonshire was particularly courteous when writing to point out that I'd got Park Top all wrong. I bet her desk doesn't have Lego all over it.

Cartwright mentions nothing of this sort. His desk is an oasis of calm, a controlled environment within which his mind is free to bear fruit. My desk contains all seven series of The West Wing on DVD, unboxed, unsorted, sprawling behind my monitor in a silvery cascade of chaos, and I certainly didn't put them there.

Read Steve Dennis's blog at racingpost.com'The areas of my desk that still retain transparency are covered in Lego'