Weirdest Places I’ve Ever Finished a Book
Okay, so my husband has been gone for a week, and he’ll be gone for another week and all the while I’ve been working my way through a book that’s due in four weeks. Theoretically, a possible goal, but much trickier when one is single-parenting! (for those of you who do this all the time…my hat’s off to you.)
So this had me thinking about the strangest places/circumstances under which I’ve finished books. And I have a list.
1. The hospital – I finished An Accidental Birthright in the hospital after giving birth to baby #3
2. The Car – I finished Heir to a Dark Inheritance in a parking lot, while we were moving house. One house was mostly empty, and the other wasn’t ready to move into just yet. I put Lion King on the car TV system, drove through McDonald’s, got the kids all happy then wrote with the AC on.
3. A Hotel – which isn’t that strange, except I was staying in a hotel while my mom was in the hospital having major surgery. But I finished Untouched, my second Silver Creek book in that Super 8…
4. The Car, part 2- this time while my husband was driving. I finished my last Presents, affectionately titled ‘Younger Man’ while we were en route to the animal park, and then on our way back again.
I confess, sometimes I see these times as personal challenges. I think…well, if I can do it now…then I can do it anytime. It helps me feel in control when my life is crazy. My own brand of therapy, if you will.
So, fellow writers, have any similar stories for me? And anyone else just have to get something done…even though the surroundings were NOT conducive to it?
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I don’t know about strange places, but I don’t have a lot of time to write, so I sneak it in when I can: waiting rooms, checkout lines, lunch breaks, laundromats… I don’t know if I ever finished a book in those places, but I do know I wrote 99% of a YA novel at school, in a dark corner of the quad. I wore earplugs and taped a sign to my laptop that said, “GO AWAY.”
Another time, when I worked in a cubicle, I would lock myself in the executive restroom (it had a couch) and write half a page every other hour. Fortunately, no one said anything about the excessive breaks, probably because they thought I had IBS.