Writing on the Road

Well, this should be interesting. I’m going to put my hard-earned habit of writing every day to the test, in a crucial and hardcore fashion.

Last year I got a little RV after many years of wanting one. So far I’ve used it for road trips ranging from a couple of days to a 2-3 weeks in duration. I’ve driven it around about half the country so far, and up pretty far north in Canada. I’ll probably blog about the RV and some of those travels in more detail later, and you can see my photo record of previous trips (RV and otherwise) at http://gryphontravel.shutterfly.com. (Please let me know what you think of the photos and the trips, BTW.)

Last year, at the point when I was first seriously contemplating getting started on the writing project that this blog is about, I had planned to derive out of these trips the motivation, inspiration, subject matter, and excuses to write. I set up a dock for the laptop, the same one I’m using to write on now, where it’s rigged to the LCD TV in the vehicle and has a wireless keyboard and trackball. The TV is across from the little sofa, and there’s a table I can mount in one of two collars in the floor, in case I want to put the keyboard or the laptop itself right in front of me. I put a lot of thought into getting set up to be able to write.

As you probably guessed, the plan was an utter failure. I had all the starting problems that new writers always have, plus my own unique ones, but there was more. Being out on the road was a hindrance, not a motivator. There was always another 50 miles to cover, or exhaustion to give in to, or something distracting to see, or movies to watch, or books to read (my all-time #1 dominant excuse).

On these trips, sometimes I had internet access. But it didn’t motivate me to figure out the angles of getting started that require connectivity, such as researching and downloading and evaluating writers’ software, or trying to learn about social media. Sometimes I didn’t have internet access. But the isolation didn’t motivate me to buckle down and write.

Many of these trips were solo. Being alone didn’t motivate me to write when I stopped for a break or for the night. The rest of the trips were with a friend. Having another driver didn’t motivate me to write during the times I didn’t have to drive.

So basically, the idea of writing on the road was a total failure, despite the fact that there was nothing in the way but myself.

But that’s not gonna happen this year. It can’t. Because I have to keep up writing every day, and I have to take a lot of road trips this year.

So what’ll be different this time?

In the interest of shorter blog entries, to be continued tomorrow…