Writing on the Road, and Leaving Colorado

A good thing that has happened on this trip is I've discovered I really can work on the road. I had a really good writing day on Saturday, felt myself melting back into the story, and it reminded me about the wonderful part of writing, when it takes hold of you and you lose track of everything else around you. I'm now sort of thinking that the idea of leaving home, leaving the phone interruptions, the plants that need watering, the floors that need vacuuming, the meals that need preparing, has been helpful in an odd way, at least as far as focus is concerned. And this after all these years of thinking I had to be at home, had to have my desk, my files, my surroundings.

That said, I will admit I have some things at home I wish I had brought here with me, or I wish at least, that I had taken the time to take a better inventory before I left. Now, that I've finished reading what is actually in the manuscript, I'm seeing more clearly things that should be there but aren't, and in several cases, these things are parts and pieces, and whole chapters, that were cut out and should go back in. Writing is such a process, so much more than most people who have never written understand. I was telling my SO yesterday that my last two books took an entire case of 24 reams of paper, with all the rewriting that I do. I am admittedly a compulsive re-writer, but for me, it's what works. Someone said recently that anybody can act, but only a few can act well. I think the same can be said of writers. Anybody can write, but only a few can write well. I want to be part of the few, and for me that means many MANY rewrites.

We are just about done with Colorado. Yippee! Strange to me that so many people I know hold Colorado in such high regard. I admit that some of the mountain places are lovely, but this part where everybody lives, the Denver area, to me is just as bad as Houston. The air is bad. The traffic is hideous. The roads are in deplorable condition. The mountains, the Front Range, as they call them, have been defaced by microwave towers and other distractions. I don't find the people to be especially friendly. And I also don't consider their so-called artsy, liberal, creative attractions to be authentic like it is, say, in New York. At least the people in New Mexico are honest in their tunnel vision. I'm not sure that makes perfect sense, but to me there is just something phony about this whole area, and I guess it's the authenticity that I miss whenever I'm here. So I'm happy to be saying goodbye to it until January.

Onward .... (and not soon enough!)