Tomorrow, I’m on the road again, and once again, I’m making lists. I’m working on my plan for the perfect packed bag. Last time I impressed myself by going all Up In The Air and taking only carry on. Admittedly it’s one of those wheelie bags which stretch the definition to breaking point. Last time I made a stewardess hate me forever by repeatedly attempting to ram the thing into a narrow overhead locker whilst accidentally shoving my pelvis at the elderly lady seated below.
This time, I’m going to pack even less. But when it comes to reading, writing and technology I’m no minimalist. I’ll be dragging along at least two laptops, which will have to be sucked out from their lairs and presented to security, along, possibly, with my malodorous shoes.
I’m promising myself I will work. But it occurs to me that I should be honest about this. Note to self. YOU WILL NOT WORK ON THE PLANE. That story planning you intend to do, those blog ideas, those scenes from the competition. Will. Not. Get. Done.
You’ll start with good intentions, of course you will, you’ll even crack open a laptop once your ears stop popping. But you’ll quickly become self-conscious when you sense the passenger beside you focus on your screen. At the time you’ll inevitably be writing something like,
“it was only when she came up again he realized she was tearing at intestine. She grinned and winked at him. Her entire lower face was coated with blood and scraps of matter now. He heard screaming somewhere far away, and noted absently that the cries were his own.”
At that time your companion for the next nine hours will either edge away from you or towards you. Neither outcome is good. Under no circumstances continue with your vague plan to sell pornography by the word.
“Dear Casual Encounters, I’d like to tell you about a particularly energetic plane ride…”
No. Don’t do it.
When you arrive you might stand half a chance of writing something at the hotel, but don’t count on it. You will, after all be working in a room dominated by a huge bed so that every time you sit down to write, the urge to nap will become almost unendurable.
So all in all, I’m planning to retreat into writing on my feet, setting myself little story planning puzzles as I wander from meeting to meeting, and as I haunt independent bookstores. I’ll be pleased if all I achieve is a half-way plausible reason why an eco-protesting grandmother is hanged in an English village square by quasi-governmental troops. But that’s another post.
