The Good Patrons of 750 Words

1 cup

Everyone who knows me is aware of how much I love living in the Napa Valley. But for a writer it has one huge drawback. The weather is so perfect that most of the year I find it almost impossible to confine myself to the house and write.

I have tried the lap top in the lawn lounge, but my dogs consider me in any resting position a play invitation. I test drove moving my computer to the balcony. It seemed the perfect solution, sun, soft breeze and a coffee refill almost within arms reach. It didn’t work. I forgot about all our delightful, retired neighbors walking their dogs, or simply enjoying the fresh air passing in a steady stream, past our house and under the balcony. Everyone stopped to offer a greeting and like Idaho Farmers passing on a dirt road a “hello” leads to an hour long conversation. Being retired myself the pleasure of casual conversation was always enough to pull me away from the keyboard and my train of thought. After a week perched on the balcony I became a neighborhood attraction. Like a human humming bird feeder, scores of people that didn’t even live in the neighborhood were becoming regular visitors drawn to ask about how my book was coming along. I realized by week two that my writing career was going nowhere but my family of friends was growing like lawn weeds.

It’s been two years since I retired. Since author at home wasn’t working I dedicated a vacation to writing. I returned with a great tan, a ten pound weight gain, and fifty new e-mail friends. A cruise away from family and responsibility was just too wonderful to squander sitting at a desk in a windowless (cheap) stateroom. Besides the rocking and rolling of the of my abode in the bowels of the ship, accompanied by the thrumming of a million horse power diesel engine next door, chased my inner Muse back stateside.

I have resigned my ambition as a writer to the whims of the Napa Valley weather. Today it’s raining. I am dry and cozy with no desire to be anyplace other than in front of my computer writing. I don’t see a book in my future, unless my ability to speed type grows to exceeds five thousand words a minute, or the weather takes a drastic turn and we get a Seattle type winter of gray sky’s and rain sometime soon.