Well, here I am, ensconced in my hotel room. I didn’t manage to write too much last night, but I got a great jump on the morning before going down to breakfast. Now I’m about to get back to work but want to do a quick blog entry.
I received a complimentary upgrade to a double queen suite with a full kitchen. I have no idea why, but it’s quite nice. But who comes to a hotel to cook? I sure don’t.
The main trouble I have with hotel rooms is that they don’t provide tables with a lower tray for laptops or keyboards. Just about every businessman and woman travels with a laptop today, but these desks in hotel rooms are always high (for eating). We need something lower for typing. Fortunately, I brought my separate keyboard so I can sit it on my lap. Still…
In response to my Writing Experiment post yesterday, I received this comment from Swan:
Hm, I don’t think sitting in a hotel room would inspire me. I’d need some kind of nature setting, a forest or quiet park nearby where I could sit among the trees maybe. Possibly if the hotel room had a balcony…
To which I must respond: This has nothing to do with being inspired and everything to do with just writing, just getting the words down.
Many people assume that a writer needs to be inspired to write. Wrong. If you wait for inspiration, you’d rarely write. Same thing is true for doing the laundry. If you wait to be inspired to do the laundry, you’d quickly run out of clothes to wear. The point of going to a hotel room like this is to get away from all distractions — the phone, the mail, even the pretty forest or quiet park that might be nearby. The point is to get as many words on paper in as shortest time as is possible.
This morning in a daily digest from a writers group, I received a link to this great Writer’s Prayer by Lawrence Block. It comes from a book published in 1981, and I remember reading it when I first started writing. Block was the fiction columnist in the Writer’s Digest Magazine back when I began writing, and I never missed his column. I also read several of his books which are very good. I’m sure this link will be repeated in a number of authors’ blogs because it is so good and so true. This is what it’s like to be a writer, and this is sure a prayer I need to pray!
-rlh-
Robin, if that’s a pic of where you’re staying, it looks like the hotel we stayed in when my son and daughter-in-law got married in Boise! Don’t worry, I won’t say the name. 🙂
Hey Robin, I was going to respond to your post yesterday that I’d rather read your books than your blog and to enjoy your time away. So I was delighted to see today that you’re still blogging – a good link, encouraging thoughts AND a new book in the making. Doesn’t get any better than this for your readers! I do pray your writing experiment is profitable and blessed.
P.S. About the inspiration, I am learning this finally. Something actually happens when I sit down and put my fingers to the keyboard. It’s a mess but fun!!!
Robin, this post, and the ‘prayer’ are perfect. I’m working on a talk (this is re poetry, though, not fiction) for a local writing group. I’ve called it “Demystifying the Muse – recognizing inspiration and making it part of your everyday life.” Thank you!
Robin, I know what you mean about the distractions. The environment has to be one that helps you concentrate. I guess we just have different elements that help us concentrate. I often find hotel furniture very distracting, including the kinds of fabrics they use in hotels that I may be able to afford and something like the table you describe. On the other hand, fresh air and a ray of sunshine help me concentrate.
Distractions are different for everyone, I think, and sometimes they end up proving quite useful. I still remember my first grade teacher, Sister Sheila Ann, reprimanding me the entire month of October for watching the maple tree shed its blazing leaves. “Katy McKenna! You’re not paying attention!”
Technically, I WAS paying attention, so much so that I can recall the situation with perfect clarity 45 years later! I just wasn’t paying attention to my crummy workbook!
Ah, distractions…the stuff of life. 🙂
Robin,
You go, girl! I see you entered the hotel on April 7th and it is now the 9th. You must be so busy cranking out the scenes that you don’t even remember what a blog is, right? I hope it is a wonderful experiment that turns out to be an effective tool in your writer’s tool box.
I got “Genius” on the vocab test you had a link to R(Reading some older blog entries)! It made my day. Well, my hour anyway.
Last November I went to a hotel to write. It was just one day. I checked in at 11 a.m. and wrote until about 8pm. I have to say for me it didn’t work. The words poured out but they seemed oh so bad. Crapola. I finally closed the laptop down and I didn’t open the thing up again for six weeks, I was that discouraged. OK, it was also right before Thanksgiving, and I gave myself time off over the holidays, but I had serious doubts. Then the new year arrived and I went from 10 chapters to 36 in a matter of five weeks. I don’t know if that means I should stay away from hotels? I do know one thing that helps me, is I write on a laptop that does not have internet or email. I have a desktop downstairs that has all that. That way on my ‘writing machine’, I can only write.
Also prevents any chance of virus attack. Interesting what getting rid of the internet has done for me.
Looking forward to hearing how the experiment worked for you!
Blessings–
Toni