I like writing to be more portable and flexible. I like writing to be something that fits into cracks and crannies. I don’t like it to dominate my life. I like it to fill my life. There is a big difference.
~ Julia Cameron, The Right to Write
I do a lot of traveling, for both business and pleasure.
Just last month, Bob and I were in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Arizona to spend time with family. This month, I travel to Syracuse and Philadelphia. Next month, I’ll be at the Romance Writers of America conference in New York City.
I love traveling but I don’t like traveling with a lot of stuff. Last year, when Bob and I traveled to Italy for three weeks, a young friend of ours was astonished when she picked us up at the Florence train station and discovered we each only had a small suitcase and a tote (and my small crossover purse). Because we were going to be traveling by plane, train and bus, and hauling our stuff up and down station stairways and lodging steps, we packed as efficiently as we could. Everything had to be light and portable. For my writing, all I carried was a blank notebook, a pen, and a few printed pages of the last few scenes I’d written. 
When I travel, I usually carry at least a notebook and pen so I can write when the opportunity or mood arises. But just before our trip to LA, I discovered two mobile apps, Dropbox and Jotterpad, that allowed me to access my complete manuscript and type up new scenes on the plane, on my dad’s patio and in a coffee shop. Those two apps and a bluetooth keyboard for my Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 and I was good to go.
How portable are you? If you are traveling this summer to sit on a beach, go hiking in the mountains, or to visit family and friends, can you take your writing with you and fit it into the cracks and crannies?
Whether it is over hot chocolate and croissant, or while squeezed into the middle seat of long airplane ride, or just when you need a break from the noise and loving chaos of family get-togethers, being portable means you won’t lose touch with your Muse or your story.
What will make you and your writing portable? The story is already packed away in your mind and heart. All you need are simple tools to keep moving it from there onto paper and screen.
So you can keep writing this summer.