Connectivity

 So, I try to post every weekend.  I’m in the middle of a new novel—well, wait.  I’m at the beginning of a new novel, and I have three promised non-fiction papers to finish.  Then after that, back to fiction.

I didn’t post last weekend, however, because the internet went out.  Actually, it was my modem that went out.  Hard to believe that in this day and age it takes 48 hours to get a tech to fix something so damned essential, but that’s the world we live in.

I tried to get some writing done since you don’t technically need the internet to do it.  It didn’t work.  A weekend without the internet and with no way to post on my beloved blog.  What’s a struggling writer to do?

Come up with ideas, that’s what.  My best ideas come up when I’m doing something unrelated to the actual writing I live for.  Taking a walk.  Taking a shower.  Driving.  At least on the taking a walk option I can write things down.  Or I could if I took my notebook.

As a working writer, I walk fast.  It’s still too dark around here to get my walk in before starting work.  So I take a quick break around lunch and walk.  I walk fast and I don’t stop.  It’s often some of the most inspirational time during the week.  I come home repeating story ideas that I don’t want to forget, rushing for a paper and pen.

I don’t take my notebook because I’m pressed for time.  I often muse that it is just this very time pressure that makes creativity flow.  When I commuted into New York daily, I had very little time and when I stopped commuting the ideas seemed to have dried up.  What is it with creativity and pressure?

I think my limiting my walk time is a way of building pressure again, like an InstantPot on legs.  It may not work for you, but when you have no internet, perhaps taking a walk is the most creative thing you can do.