How do you write?

Do you prefer to write on the computer or by hand?

Check out these 12 writers who prefer writing their stories longhand. A couple of the names may surprise you. They sure surprised me!

Writing a novel…

My November was so much fun! I wrote a novel. Well…the first draft of a novel, as part of National Novel Writing Month.

Over the 30 days of November I wrote a book: 53,902 words, an average of 1,796 words per day. It was a blast! Now it’s time for a little [...]

The world is a book…

If traveling the world was a novel, here is one possible blueprint:

Main character: you
Supporting cast: random strangers, with a sprinkling of family and friends
Time: now
Setting: the present
Location: wherever you are
Opening scene: waking up
Act I: discovering a new place
Act II: continue exploration
Act III: connect to your life

A book in either 193*, 195**, 196*** or 321**** chapters

* [...]

Guide me…

Travel guidebooks fascinate me. (No surprise, right.) The best are Frommer’s–you get a sense of the author(s) and what they really love about the places they write about. That can be hard to do when you are communicating mostly a bunch of facts that, in the wrong hands, can be very dry.

Frommer’s Mexico was a [...]

Writing a novel…

Anyone want to join me in writing a novel next month? It’s National Novel Writing Month.

I just decided to jump in with both feet. Heck, there are seven whole days to plan the plot, characters, and outline the story so I can hit the ground running on November 1.

And write 1,600 words a day.

No prob!

What else do you need…

to be happy other than the words of the icons of contemporary travel writing?

What else are we looking for in travel (and in love and in life) but a tasty mix of the strange and familiar? – Pico Iyer

I cannot make my days longer so I strive to make them better. – Paul Theroux

A [...]

Dear diary...

Do you keep a travel journal? I’ve never been big on it. If I’m writing about some place I take notes and photos to remember things by. But a journal, not so much.

Is it because I spend so much of my usual days writing or thinking about writing? Or am I just lazy?

A visual journal [...]

This is sharp…

LOVE this idea: Artisanal pencil sharpening

Send your pencils to the Hudson River Valley in New York to be hand sharpened by David Rees, complete with a certificate of sharpening. Or don’t even send your pencil…the artist will provide you with a pencil and then sharpen it for you.

What a great idea! I may have to [...]

Overheard again…

It’s amazing the things people will talk about in public on their cell phones.

Overheard on a busy corner outside a T stop, through raspy sobs: “If you sleep with her again, and have another child with her while we’re still together…”

Um…you go girl?

Overheard a couple days ago: a conversation so vile that I will not [...]

Who knows…

The most recent free magazine offers to arrive in my inbox: Bowhunt America and Autoweek.

There’s an outside chance I might flip open an issue of Autoweek. If, that is, I’m bored to tears and the only other reading material in the room is Bowhunt America. I’m sure they are fine periodicals, but I’m hardly the [...]