10/18/18

I’m coming at you from the thriving metropolis of Orlando, Florida. No, not Disney. I’m in real Orlando. Okay, I’m near the convention center, which is probably closer to Disney than downtown Orlando. You didn’t know Orlando had a downtown? Actually, I didn’t know that either until a few years ago when a friend got married there, and I’m from Florida.

I’m on another business trip, where I often get some of my best writing done. This particular trip involves an industry convention where you meet lots of people, some are my clients and some I want to be my clients. There are education sessions, one of which I presented at.  There are the usual after hours parties, which I usually eschew. The hosts aren’t looking for my business. I’m essentially a vendor like they are. I also try to avoid the fancy dinners that take all night. I don’t find appealing sitting at a table for hours wondering where the waitstaff disappeared to again. Instead I write and I sleep, two things that don’t happen enough at home.

However, so far I’ve been so busy here my writing has suffered. I’ve used what would be my writing time in the evenings to prepare for my presentation and to do real work.  Don’t you hate it when real work gets in the way of your writing?

My only writing accomplishment was hammering out a 900 word flash piece on the plane here. The idea for the story came to me last Friday while running. Those runs remain my favorite time/place to come up with new ideas and plot existing ideas, as I detailed in Post #33. I’m pleased the story came together so quickly. I already sent it to one of my beta readers, who liked it.  I should be able to finalize this one and get it out the door to its first potential market fairly quickly.

Unfortunately, I’ve gone on two runs while here and have nothing writing related to show for it. There have been no new ideas and no further plotting of existing stories.  I’ve been more concerned with not getting run over by Florida drivers, who don’t feel the need to stop for a pedestrian in a crosswalk… ever.

Let me know in the comments whether your business trips are productive from a writing standpoint.

Photo credit: Skitterphoto via Pixabay