How do you leave your writing behind when you’re traveling? There’s a lot going on in a writer’s office and a lot of loose ends to tie up when you leave for a few days. But how many of you leave your work behind when you travel—or do you take it with you?
I’ve been known to work on books and articles while traveling—even before the computer came into being. Still, pad and pen in hand, I will jot down impressions, thoughts and concrete article/blog ideas. I will write reminders to myself of things I need to do when I return. I will come up with ideas I’ll want to flesh out and discuss with colleagues, clients or the SPAWN board or that I want to write about.
I know writers who read books to review while traveling—my own books have gone on many an exotic and mundane trip while being studied or read for review.
Now, with the travel-size computer, it is easy to tame the email lion. I mean, who wants to face the enormous amount of email most of us get in a day after a week or even three days away? It would take a lot of time to sort it all and address the legitimate emails.
Many of my trips involve work, as I travel to speak a lot, which is what I’m doing this week. I’ll be speaking to a writers’ group near Sacramento Saturday on freelance writing. While traveling, I’ll also be working on presentations for the upcoming Ojai Writer’s Conference in June. I’m presenting a workshop on writing a book proposal and I’m the keynote speaker for the luncheon. The organizer wants me to talk about the ABC’s of self-publishing.
I am bringing a couple of books to read that don’t relate to writing. But I’m sure that I’ll manage to make them about writing. I’ll come across a sentence style that I’ll want to discuss in this blog, a phrase that will generate some ideas for a client’s project, a concept that could be expanded and related to something I’m working on, etc.
Certainly, I’ll bring home a lot of new perspectives from my interaction with the writers group. Sometimes these encounters result in new articles or complete books.
I’d say it is impossible for a writer to get away from her work altogether. An astute writer sees opportunities and ideas everywhere and an enterprising writer puts the promising ones into practice.
While I’m away, how about ordering my book, Publish Your Book, Proven Strategies and Resources for the Enterprising Author. It’s at Amazon and most other online and downtown bookstores. In fact, if you purchased your copy of Publish Your Book or Promote Your Book in a bookstore, I’d love to hear where it was. Leave a comment here or email me at PLFry620@yahoo.com