Home. Finally I have time to write.

Uh, not so fast, there Tommy…

From October through April mine was a life spent primarily on the road; promoting Gather at the Table with my writing partner Sharon Morgan and speaking solo at several colleges, universities and libraries. I was determined that once I returned home toward the end of April, I would stay home and focus on writing for the next 4-5 months.

There were a few technical details that needed attending. I had time to take my new laptop in to the Geek Squad to get the on/off button fixed (it broke in January but I couldn’t be without it while on the road so I simply put it into hibernate mode when I wasn’t using it). I had time to replace my aging and ailing Blackberry with a new iPhone. Learning how to use the iPhone, figure out how to add all my  contacts, email accounts, calendar, was challenging. But knowing I would be without my laptop for at least a week, I did my best to make the iPhone work for me. Then I was told that fixing my laptop was more costly to Best Buy than simply giving me a new computer. Oh, no!

So for the past week I’ve been re-configuring, re-formatting, re-loading, an trying to re-member everything I need for the new laptop. I’m getting close. But my goal of spending May writing has not materialized.

OnWritingYet May has proven to be productive and rewarding for the author in me. Anyone who has read Stephen King’s wonderful book On Writing (which I recommend highly to all aspiring writers) knows that there are two equally important tasks for authors. One, of course, is writing. The other is reading. So I read On Writing again.  I read Rachel Aaron’s eBook 2,000 to 10,000: How to Write Faster, Write Better, and Write More of What You Love. I read To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time ever (how was this book never assigned in any class I ever took?). I read Dan Brown’s latest thriller Inferno in five days (my wife Lindi whipped through it in three). I’m now in the middle of Andrew Himes’s captivating The Sword of the Lord: The Roots of Fundamentalism in an American Family.

Computer and phone challenges inspired me to spend less time online and more time reading, learning, and being inspired. Now, as I write this blog post on my 3rd laptop in six months (did I mention the reason I had a new laptop in the first place is because my old one crashed completely last November – rendering everything on it irretrievable), I look forward to several months of writing and reading. I’ll also spend time on the river, going for long walks, and playing with grandchildren, of course, and less time online. Though I won’t ignore Facebook completely, the past month has helped me re-prioritize my time and activities. For that I am grateful to the tech gremlins that have played havoc with my life so thoroughly.

You can go bother someone else now, gremlins. I have a novel to write.