So much of your life as a writer depends on where and when you write. Obviously, nothing happens until you finish your manuscript. That is every writer’s first goal. What I’m suggesting in this post is a more radical approach to writing. My mantra is, if you want to change the world by what you write, change how you write.

Put Away the Computer, Walk Away from the Desk

Let me set this new writing scene for you: You leave the house. You tap your pockets for wallet, keys, phone. These are the essentials of your life. Soon, you’ll be on a train or bus heading to work and will pull out your phone to check for texts or email or to log into social media while despairing that you could not stay home to write. But, you could be writing right then, at that moment and at every moment of your life as you are thinking about your story.

From Finished Manuscript to Published Book

The phone can become your main writing tool for you as it has become for many writers. Why? Because, as I am sure you are now realizing while reading this post, you already use it for everything else in your life.

Speaking from my from my experience, I have written multiple drafts of my novels on my phone. I don’t need Wi-Fi to work. I only require silence and a comfortable spot to sit. I can edit on my phone and send out portions of it to friends for critiquing. I can do a good deal of my research as well as read other writers to study how they solved problems I am having.

Note taking, lists of things to add or remove, or places I need to look at more closely. All of that can be kept on my phone. No matter where I go, the phone is with me and I can write.

Having freed myself from the tyranny of sitting in one dedicated place has allowed for more creative ideas to flow. In effect, I am always at my desk whether on the subway, waiting for a movie to begin, standing in those endless grocery store lines or on a bench in Washington Square Park.

The phone is also my library. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, source material, favorite books to give me support as I write, all of that is right on my phone.

When I need a break, I can put my phone away and watch the world around me. I’m secure because the phone is within reach. My chapters, the outlines, the character sketches, any random notes I have taken are not in a clutter on a desk but filed on my phone in my notes.

Given this new flexibility in my writing life and how I organize my life as a writer, I feel that I have been handed the keys to a magical new world of storytelling. While I imagine many may still be adjusting to e-books as they are sold now, I envision an even more creative future when e-books will create interactive relationships between writers and readers. With the speed with which technology develops now, I am certain this day will be sooner than we may think.

Learning to house my writing and reading life on my phone may seem radical to some, but for me, it is the dream I have been dreaming for many years.

All of us writers want to be telling new stories, inventing for readers experiences they have never had. How can we do that if we are reading and writing in the same ways every year?

Try it now. See what I and other writers have discovered from this new mobile writing life. It will spur ideas in you too about a new future of storytelling unlike anything we have been able to do up to today.

Remember this too: #GoVegan #ReadBooks

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