I made it to Green Bay for Writers Police Academy despite my plane from Chicago to Green Bay being delayed for two and a half hours because they suddenly didn’t have a plane. The funny part is that the flight itself took a half an hour.
While hanging out waiting for the flight, I meet someone else going to Writers Police Academy and a man who lives in Green Bay. I learned some interesting things from them while we were waiting. The writer told me about something she learned at Thrillerfest. There are dogs that can smell a thumb drive. Interesting to me because the fifth Yarn Retreat mystery, A Tangled Yarn, which I am writing now has a hidden thumb drive.
The man told us about his daughter who is in her third year of medical school and seems to be involved in some secret medical stuff with the government. Some of it, she can’t even tell her family. She was able to tell her parents that she went to Africa during the Ebola outbreak and that they barely managed to keep it from becoming a pandemic.
The flight was unusual because the crowd was so nice. Instead of fighting over the overhead space, they helped each other place bags and when the plane landed helped get the bags back to whom they belonged.
I was working on A Tangled Yarn while I was in Chicago. I had already written a synopsis for it, but was just writing the beginning. I find it useful to start off hand writing, usually with a yellow legal pad. This time I tried using a spiral notebook thinking it would easier to keep track of the sheets. I posted a photo of the notebook with my scribble on Facebook and I heard from quite a few people who also hand wrote. They also bemoaned the face that children aren’t being taught cursive writing anymore. Everything is typing. But the thing is, you use a different part of your brain when you hand write. I find myself more connected to what I’m writing.
My day starts early tomorrow. Breakfast at 6 a.m., which means getting up even earlier. It is going to be non stop after that, so I want to get as much sleep as possible. Next week I’ll have pictures and stories from the weekend.
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2 comments:
How interesting that dogs can sniff out thumb drives. I'm always happy to learn of additional canine skills! Plus, how fun that in just talking to people you may have gotten a new plot idea. And though I do my actual writing on the computer, I make lots of notes (in my sloppy cursive!) on what's next in my stories by writing them on notecards.
I am so happy your wait time was not wasted and that the final half hour of travel went so well. WPA was awesome and I can't wait to do it again.
I could use a drive sniffing dog around home as SOMEONE (not me) is always misplacing a thumbdrive.
I also still love writing by hand. I think the brain to paper connection works much better that way.
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