How A Writer Travels

Mommy’s going to the moon, BRB.

1. Pack the computer. Don’t forget the goddamn charger. You know what happens when you forget the goddamn charger.

2. Pack the notebook. Because keeping all your ideas in one place is fucking laughable.

3. Pack the backup notebook. In case the first one gets wet/set on fire/confiscated by security/stolen by airport gremlins/transported to the Narnia of Lost Travel Items*.

4. Remember that you forgot to backup your files. Unpack the computer and start the backup.

5. Pick out a pen. Applicants must: write fluidly with none of your goddamn skipping or fading; be ink so black light gets drawn in to its felt-tipped event horizon; be thin because I hate big pens; and cheap enough to not be the cause of a rage fit if I lose it.

6. Wonder why the backup is taking so goddamn long. Remember that all those multimedia files you added to your story bibles and outlines are probably not helping.

7. Get paranoid about the effects of airport scanner machines on your laptop.

8. Wonder if you should pack a backup computer.

9. Wonder where you can get a backup computer.

10. Resolve to stop worrying and embrace travel. Think of those pictures of the free-spirited flights of the 60s, where everyone looked stunning and no one had crying infants. Like Mad Men in the sky.

11. Realize those pictures are bullshit. Seriously, fuck those guys.

12. Pack index cards. Two colours. And a sharpie. You never know when you’ll have to outline on the road.

13. Check the backup. Nope. You have to wait.

14. Wonder if you should pack your sketch book, too. What if I have to think in pictures?

15. Compromise by packing a combined notebook/sketchbook. Feel satisfied at making a decision like an adult.

16. Get paranoid about losing a notebook and a sketchbook in one fell travel-related swoop.

17. Drink.

18. Pack everything that’s not the computer.

19. Stare at the computer.

20. Staaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrreee.

21. Why isn’t it done yet?

22. Drink again.

23. Fuck this back up. It’s good enough. Pack the computer.

24. Leave in the full knowledge that you are a well-prepared traveling wordsmith, able to deal with anything that comes. Fly. Check in. Relax. Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh.

25. Realize you left the computer’s charger at home.

(No Monday Challenge this week because, if you didn’t gather from the above, I’m on a trip to Somewhere. Writing prompts will be back next week, but otherwise posts will be up as usual. As you were.)

*Like regular Narnia, but without the creepy Christianity overtones and nothing ever comes back. So, more like that ‘farm’ your parents said your childhood dog went to live on.