Who are you, and what do you do? What do you like to do outside of work?

Hello, I’m D.H. Dhaenens, an author currently doing a Creative Writing MA at Queen Mary University of London. My keyboard rarely rests, as I’m writing almost constantly, whether it’s for assignments or whatever draft I’m working on at that time. So far I have self-published five books together with my wife under our own publishing company, Flammable Penguins. You can find us at many cons across the UK, on Amazon and itch.io!

Outside of that I have too many hobbies: boxing, crochet, Japanese street fashion, cat petting, tabletop RPGs, hoarding loose leaf teas…

What hardware do you use?

My setup has two lovely Dell monitors, a custom Cube PC (AMD Ryzen 7/GTX 1650), an ErgoDox EZ keyboard, and an Anker ergonomic wireless mouse. You can also find a Quest 2 hanging around.

The need for ergonomics came about after I started suffering RSI during my day job. I would write at work, come home and write even more. So when that happened, we looked into a better setup, which included the ErgoDox keyboard and an ergonomic mouse. It has helped immensely and keeps typing a joy.

Outside of that, I also have a Kindle Scribe for note-taking at uni and a Google Pixelbook that I took over from my amazing wife. My going-outside kit consists of a Microsoft foldable keyboard, a Kindle Paperwhite and my phone, a Pixel 4a!

I am also a bit of an audiophile, so I also own a few pairs of headphones… I own a pair of Sony WH-CH510 headphones, which are great for workouts. Marshall Major II Bluetooth headphones have been my daily driver for the last five years. Last but not least, I use Sony LinkBuds, which are the most sci-fi earbuds I have ever seen.

And what software?

The Google suite is life. I love being able to switch between devices when working on a project. For a while I also used custom writing software created by my wife.

Recently I’ve also started using Word again, mostly for assignments.

And then there’s Discord, where a lot of my hobby groups congregate!

What’s your keyboard setup like? Do you use a custom layout or custom keycaps?

Sadly, on that front I am very simple. I tweaked the setup once or twice but once I found a layout that worked for me, that was it! Still, I do want to experiment more and find ways to make this keyboard even better.

What would be your dream setup?

To be honest, my current setup is pretty close! The blanket plus desk setup means I am always nice and warm, and the cat tree next to me usually provides me with at least one elderly, loudly snoring cat. I also have a great view of the garden, and the ergonomics of my setup make sure I can write forever.