Portable
So when I was a kid, I wanted to take up the blues harmonica. I took piano lessons, but it's not like you can lug a piano around. I had a harmonica, but all I ever accomplished was blowing through it and making noise. I tried saxophone lessons when I was around 22. I can't say I was any more sucessful with that than I was with harmonica. Now I fiddle with a guitar. I like the idea of being able to take it with me places.
So I've been quiet this week because I visited my mom and dad. The generals in Afghanistan have NOTHING on me when it comes to planning on being away from my kids for three or four days. There was the angel of a friend who kept them on Sunday and fed them dinner, the babysitter, Oldest Daughter . . . and still it was not easy. Not to mention the Mom Guilt I was wracked with because Dynamo Boy got the stomach flu while I was away and I felt awful that I wasn't there to take care of him. On the flipside, I go through these weird mental gymnastics when it comes to visiting my parents because I am constantly conscious of the fact that they are well . . . getting old. And so when I say goodbye I hug them like it could be the last time. Morbid, but there you go.
So I sit here in an airpot blogging . . . and thinking it's not much different from the harmonica. No, not the sound . . . but the fact that when you are a writer you can write ANYWHERE. You can write in your HEAD while people around you are talking, you can write in longhand, taking notes, you can write in an airport. HEck, I have a friend who wrote a chapter on his Blackberry.
I think it's just one of those things about writing I don't often think about . . . but yes, I really love that freedom.
So tell me . . . what's the weirdest place you ever wrote from? And is writing's portability one of the things you like?
23 comments:
Weirdest? I don't know about weird, but let's see. I've written in my office, my kitchen, my living room, my deck (lighting's not so good for the laptop). I've written in airports, on airplanes, in hotel rooms and hotel lobbies. I've written in long-hand in a hospital cafeteria and longhand in my top desk drawer at the hospital when I was supposed to be doing other work (you know, the stuff they were paying me for). I've written in my car (parked). In restaurants occasionally. On vacations at my sister's condo (sheesh, I'm mental).
So yeah, portable. Which is also something I like about guitar, versus piano.
I wrote a song in the barracks after watching a prison movie.
Wait a minute. That wasn't me. That was Johnny Cash.
I guess I don't have any good stories about writing in weird places. But I can make one up!
I wrote with my own blood on the wall of a cave after my foot got hopelessly stuck in a crevice...
Missed you this week!
I've written on my blackberry!
Mark:
I've written a lot waiting . . . waiting rooms, waiting for my kids at an event . . . waiting.
Jude:
LOL!!!
Starbucks:
I have a small netbook. That's about as small as I've gotten for actual writing.
I feel the same way when visiting my parents. I only see them once a year and with them getting older and health problems, I often wonder which goodbye is the last.
For writing, the weirdest place. Hmm... I've written in airplanes and at restaurants (I keep a little notebook in my purse in case inspiration strikes). Ooh, and while camping up a volcano. :)
I'm ashamed to say that I've written on the toilet paper roll in a public bathroom (and yes, I did it while sitting down).
Melody, that's pretty awesome! Was what you wrote worth the trouble?
I wrote in a public bathroom stall once (as opposed to ON it), but I wrote in a notebook ....
Saturday I was at a baseball game, and I took my notebook and wrote in a bathroom stall.
I've also written in a kayak on a lake with my palm pilot. (It even had Word and a little fold-up keyboard!)
First, I'm glad you're okay (even if DB isn't). I was about to email you to ask if everything was okay (and then I wonder what stopped me). *sigh*
I LOVE the portability of being a writer. Love it. Being a designer I'm completely locked to my desktop computer (I know you can work on a laptop but it's a PITA) so being able to write wherever is very freeing for me.
The weirdest place that popped into my head was at the doctor's office. A scene came to mind so I wrote it on the back of the prescription the doctor had just given me.
I wrote a critique at a dinner party a few weeks ago because I was so enthralled with the work and had to keep reading and then I had to get my thoughts out right away. People thought I was weird and dedicated.
One of those is more true than the other.
Small notebooks while waiting in lines at the New York World Fair as a teen.
I record on my walks. With the Bluetooth on my ear people think I'm talking to someone other than myself.
While sitting on top of the sink of the girls bathroom at school. Don't worry, that one was out of order and it sort of became unoffical hangout for my two best friends and I.
I wrote a couple of scenes on my Blackberry in that forsaken bathroom - Whilst two girl's dressd like they're headed to a hippie gathering/rave yak my ear off.
Nadine:
I really have a hard time with good-byes ANYWAY . . . let alone with them older.
E
Melody:
I feel there's a story there somehwere. ;-)
E
P.S. WELCOME TO BLOGGER!
E. Flanigan:
All right . . . that's SLIGHTLY better than Melody. ;-)
Natasha:
I would be terrified I would drop it IN the lake.
Melanie:
I've worked in a doctor's office, too!
Jonathon:
LOL! Weird or dedicated? A question all writers should ask themselves, LOL!
Maribeth:
That's pretty cool . . . I have thought of trying to dictate . . . but I don't know . . . I think I need to see the words unfolding.
JT:
I swear, every time you post a comment, I dig you more and more.
:-)
Writing in a car is not so out of the ordinary, but when I suddenly figured out how to fix a problem scene, I had to use what was available to jot it down. I had no pen, no paper, but I had a lip liner pencil and side window.
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