A Traveling Author’s Best Bets

Ride with me on a journey. Together, let’s explore the experience of wandering North America while learning, writing, editing, teaching, and publishing. In this article I offer you a fanciful overview of my best practices for the itinerant author of fiction or non-fiction, on land or at sea. And we will examine how such a lifestyle compares to that of you stationary authors. If you’re a “roadie” too, you already understand. And we’ll talk best writing tools. 

Your Tiny Rolling Home 

Imagine your home is tiny, odd-shaped, less than three hundred square feet, maybe much less. And that little house moves with you from one place to another, anywhere you see a road wide enough and possess the desire to drive it. 

How would your life as a writer remain the same or differ from sticks ’n bricks on a cul-de-sac in Hometown, USA? How would you survive and thrive rolling over strange byways to set up camp—not as a vacation, but as a lifestyle, where the trip is home? 

Writing On Land or At Sea

Our home afloat sailed us down fifteen-hundred miles of the US river system, across the Gulf of Mexico, to the Florida Keys, and beyond. Now we’ve abandoned our life at sea in favor of “land yachting.”  So far, such journeys have lasted many years for my wife and me with no predictable end in sight. 

Still I write. 

We will explore efficiencies that allow all authors greater productivity, even from within a tiny rolling (or floating) home. 

Will the Road End Before It Begins?

I now find it difficult to imagine remaining in one place for more than several weeks, but suspect I will eventually awaken from this delightful dream. If you are considering the wandering writer’s life, please keep reading for two important safety tips. 

Know that you do need an exit strategy before hitting the Interstate, or the Intracoastal. Nothing lasts forever.  

You should also know a full-time mobile lifestyle is not for the feint of heart, maybe not even for you. But such a quest does fan the fires of inspiration. Without question.

Perennial Writing Wisdom… Anywhere

First, certain elements remain the same, no matter the geography: 

• Virtuosity requires writing daily whether standing or moving,
• My evolution as an author continues—I will never cease studying the craft, 
• Most of us need a controlled space to set our inner authors free. Some of us need noise, others silence. We all must focus. I arise early to write while it’s quiet,
• And like all serious authors, I need to build my brand,  including a web site, a blog, subscribers, and social media,
• I must communicate with other writers and readers. 

Adapting to a Mobile Writer’s Life

Other factors require me to road-adapt: 

• Important relationships with other writers and writing groups are harder “out here.” I embrace this challenge by joining online groups such as “Authors on the Road” on Facebook. Remember, first sell yourself, then your books.Google for many fine resources. Seek a good fit. I’m meeting intriguing folks online—readers and writers—with whom I might not otherwise interact, much less share tips, feedback, and outrageous stories. 
• Offering writing seminars pays delightful dividends like face-to-face marketing opportunities and increased book sales. I offer such seminars at RV rallies, local libraries, and bookstores. They never disappoint. 

An Author’s Paperless Workflow

While inspiration coalesces outside our windshield, we still sleep in our own bed each night. My study and favorite chair and ottoman faithfully follow me everywhere. Limited space for reference materials, especially for a hard-copy library remains our nemesis. Every cubic inch is precious in the bus. 

My strategy? A paperless workflow: 

• A twenty-seven-inch iMac provides a large visual portal into my work. Yes, I made room for this important (and large) writing tool. 
• “Outlining Your Novel Software”gets my juices flowing,
• Then I flesh out my first draft using an invaluable organizational and editing tool called “Scrivener,”
• Another program, “ProWritingAid”facilitates my editing process, integrating nicely with “Scrivener.” I no longer print manuscripts for editing, now unnecessary with these productivity tools,
• For now,  Kindle Direct Publishing produces my eBooks (Kindle editions) with me as publisher (Author One), eliminating the need for an inventory of space-consuming paper books, although this has affected my marketing efforts. I adapt as necessary.

You need not be a traveling author to leverage this efficient process.

Internet Connectivity & Synchronized Simplicity

My most daunting challenge remains consistent Internet connectivity to back up my research notes, drafts, and manuscripts in cloud storage, and for synchronizing my writing in Scrivener (see my review here) across my iMac, iPhone, iPad, and cloud storage. Only the Apocalypse will destroy my work even though it isn’t on paper! 

• For this purpose, the free version of an Internet site called “Dropbox” is effective and automatically synchronizes across all my devices after a one-time set up. 
• By synchronizing projects across my computer, smartphone, and tablet, I can write anywhere with absolute confidence in the integrity of all my projects modified on any of my devices. Even if inspiration strikes while standing in line at the market. Or while lying in bed. Or astride the throne.
• I shopped for cell plans that allow me unlimited data streaming to/from phones and tablets. The only time I’m data-plan-limited is to/from the desktop iMac, but my plan allows for that (except for the rare dead zone). I then use a phone or tablet as the Mac’s Internet “hotspot.” Speed is adequate. AT&T and Verizon offer adequate plans.  For almost two years I used a dedicated hotspot device (MyFi with AT&T… Verizon calls theirs a JetPack. With the evolution of cell plans, MyFi became obsolete, and I no longer need a separate device),
• To optimize free WiFi wherever available, I use a bus rooftop booster called a WiFiRanger which boasts built-in security, even over an unsecured campground WiFi, by creating a bus-wide VPN (Virtual Private Network). Yeah, too techy. Sorry. 
  • Or I loiter in a coffee shop with my iPad and Bluetooth keyboard.
  • Most of the time, my unlimited streaming plan make WiFi obsolete, at least on the phone and tablet.

My productivity soared after I adapted my writing process to this paperless workflow.

Advantages of Mobile Research

Prowling used bookstores everywhere, I eagerly anticipate the aroma of musty volumes and strong coffee… and local inspiration:

• In Astoria, Oregon, I love “Lucy’s.” Shop in a “Tardis” (Police Call Box) like Doctor Who’s.
• Another example in Astoria: if you need to research Wicca (magic and witchcraft) for a project while sipping Arabica, nearby curmudgeonly “Godfather Books” features an entire section. Another pearl I discovered there—a book on 1940s prison slang! 
• When passing through Cedar City, Utah, I love “Main Street Books” (collector’s editions, new/used, features local authors). This store connects to a popular coffee house where groups of readers and writers can commiserate in soft chairs. 

Googling can’t replace being there…  touching, smelling, hearing, tasting, feeling…

Handcrafted Characters Well Met

Delicious characters from each robust region of North America constantly surprise me, and will invade the pages of my new novels, poems, and memoirs. As examples:

• Harley is a leathery old prospector of vintage nineteenth-century bottles. He researches local courthouses to uncover erstwhile outhouse locations in Oregon ghost towns so he can “mine” bottles from those high-value digs. 
• And I’ve met self-proclaimed “rubber trampers” living in the open desert outside Quartzsite, Arizona. Most live on the cheap, minimizing their carbon footprints. Many are devotees of Henry David Thoreau. 

Oh, the as-yet-unpublished campfire stories and quotable recitations!

Staying Overnight at Writing Events

Life on the road allows us to intersect with book festivals and writing conferences. At each day’s end, we retire to our own home—the bus—just nearby. To our own bed and pillows, and to my own study from which my cherished iMac beckons. 

Frequented festival examples: 

• The summer-long Shakespeare Festival, Cedar City, Utah, where we attended several live performances of The Bard’s work, and others, including a hilarious comedy, “The Foreigner.”
• And the winter weekend Tucson Festival of Books (TFOB). As a volunteer venue monitor, I am able to meet successful authors, publishers, literary agents, and readers. If you independently publish, pay $40 for a two-hour slot at a table in the TFOB Indie Author’s Pavilion. Thousands of readers, agents, and authors see you and your work. But sign up early!  
• A more intimate festival each Winter in Fort Myers, Florida—the Southwest Florida Reading Festival. 

Such networking opportunities, including more specialized writing conferences, are especially important to the traveling author. 

Pearls of Homegrown Wisdom

Traveling emphasizes the following lessons for all authors: 

• To write well requires constant learning to keep our work fresh and evolving, 
• As we travel to sources of inspiration, internal or external, we may pay a hefty price, but our devoted inner authors will wish to pay—emotionally, financially, perhaps physically,
• No matter where I am, as a conscientious writer, I know I must pay close attention to what is happening around me, including sundry eccentricities that add spice to an otherwise bland stew.

In Conclusion

On the road or not, as authors, you and I must leverage each day as if it were our last. Because it soon will be, at least for this destination. We thus honor family, friends and readers encountered everywhere we wander. 

This is venerable guidance for all of us, not only as authors, but as human beings. 

Write on!

GK

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