by Raymond M. Coulombe
I’ve been out on the road camping for about a month and a half already. There are a few things that are not as I’d imagined. I knew my wife and I would be doing a lot of camping in more primitive and remote areas. It seemed like those would be perfect places to get a lot of writing done. After all, there shouldn’t be a lot of interruptions, right?
Nope. The weather has been nearly perfect, so I’ve spent a lot of time outside. After all, it’s too stuffy to be writing in the van. Then there’s the biking, swimming, hiking and kayaking that needs to be done. That’s fine. I figured at least some of my time would be spent doing those things. Not as much as what actually got allotted, but whatever.
There’s one huge time suck that I did not account for while camping in primitive areas. With no AC, TV or Internet, people seek out conversation. Whole days have been spent deep in conversation with perfect strangers. Of course, after a couple days of conversation, they aren’t really strangers anymore, are they?
On the plus side, I did meet some interesting characters and got introduced to new ideas. As a writer that’s fuel for more stories down the line. On the minus side, there’s just not as much “free” time as one would imagine.
In the end, it all boils down to the same old thing. If you want to be a writer, you have to squeeze in the time for it when you can. There is no perfect time to write. There is no perfect place to write.
Sounds as though life is just too good to write about! No guilt allowed.