I usually use a yellow pad and handwrite when I’m on the road, but since I am trying to finish the rewrite of GONE WITH THE WOOL while working on our seminar business, I tried bringing my laptop. And since the craft in the book is loom knitting, I also brought along my loom and the project I’m working on.
We’ve were doing a seminar in an area a fair distance away from home, so there was going to be car time to work on something. Remember that TV ad for the car that was supposed to have such a smooth ride that a guy was cutting a diamond in the backseat. That certainly wouldn’t work in our SUV. Forget trying to do anything on the computer. My typing isn’t great when I’m sitting in a non moving situation. I couldn’t even manage to look something up on my phone while we were driving. The backseat where I am seems to get the bumpiest ride. . The loom knitting worked, but it was certainly slower than in a non moving situation.
The cool thing is I have this thing called a card. It looks like a very thick credit card and gives me a hot spot, so I can go online anywhere. Even in places where they offer WiFi, it is great because it is much more secure than what’s offered by places like Starbucks. It is particularly nice to have Internet access since I have my manuscript saved on Dropbox, so I can access it from different computers.
It is different working on the road. I am writing this from the restaurant where we’re holding our seminar. I sit outside the room where the actual seminar is and the kitchen is right behind me. I am surrounded by noise and passing servers. And yet I tune it all out.
Earlier in the day, I worked at a table at a café in a shopping mall. And then in an office while family worked on other stuff. It is an interesting experience to drop in and out of the scene in the book. It always feels a little strange when I look up from my work and realize where I am. I’m so into the scenery in the Monterey peninsula I’m writing about and then it’s a shock when I look up and see the entrance to Nordstrom’s.
The seminar is almost over and it’s time for me to put away my work. Time to transition to where I really am. And now as I finish this, I’m back home on my couch with a cat leaning on my shoulder from his perch on the back of the couch.
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4 comments:
Wow! Not only is your writing excellent and versatile, but so's your ability to work anywhere!
I find it so interesting that I experience the same thing as a reader. I take my book everywhere and I can get into a book so deeply that I get lost. When I look up I am surprised to see Nordstrom or the coffee shop I'm in. Writers have a definite effect on me.
Linda, I always wondered how people concentrated in places like Starbucks. Now I know.
Miriam, I have done that with a book, too. I have to be careful, though. I'm afraid of getting into my work at the airport and then miss my plane.
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