Becoming A Writer Seriously

You may have realized from recent posts that I am once again a “roving writer.”  I’ve left my residence in Mexico, where my laptop computer  is set up to work effortlessly as a writer.  I travelled through San Francisco to attend the San Francisco Writer’s Conference and to do book research at the libraries at the University of California-Berkeley [UC-Berkeley].  Now I’m back at my new apartment in Manila, Philippines, my home for over 22 years.  I have been reminded about the challenges and opportunities of writing from various locations around the globe — or around the US, if you are nation-bound.

I was startled to discover my San Francisco experience to be so very challenging.  The host hotel for the writer’s conference charged $14.95 a day for an internet connection!  Outrageous, to my mind — but what was I to do?  I paid for the privilege for one day in order to make a post to this blog.  After the conference, I moved over to The Faculty Club at UC-Berkeley.  During my first few hours there the in-room wireless connection worked just fine, allowing another post.  But suddenly the wireless link died.  There was no internet connection from that venue for my remaining three days, even though I was paying top dollar for the room.  The manager apologized for the inconvenience when I checked out, saying that “the routers need to be reset.”  I finally found a WiFi free zone at the local Quiznos outlet, allowing me to check into the blog to assure all was working.

Of course, technology being what it is, the blog was having difficulties.  I discovered that my “homepage” turned up blank, just a white page with no content.  How depressing!  Especially after handing out a bunch of flyers for the blog at the writer’s conference, hoping to extend our network.  I immediately “fixed” the blog’s presentation, something I sadly have to do every few days.  Fortunately, I had pre-posted several blog entries, and those articles appeared right on schedule, feeding my hungry readers on a loosely regular schedule.

Now I’m in Manila, with no internet connection yet in my apartment.  Yesterday, I found a free WiFi zone at a restaurant just two blocks away. I’ll post this article from there later today.  I also discovered yesterday that the blog was once again “blank.”  It’s fixed again, and I’ll soon try to track down the source of this problem.

My experiences over the past two weeks illustrates the challenges faced by roving writers, especially those that rely on internet connection.  There appear to be three main strategies for the writer who needs to maintain connection via the internet.

FIRST:  rely on internet cafes or business centers and online applications.

SECOND:  continue to use one’s laptop as project central, turning to WiFi locations for occasional essential internet connection and uploading of one’s work.

THIRD:  a new strategy is just beginning to gain broader attention — turn to a USB memory stick as “work central.”  I’ve recently set up a USB drive with various applications and will explore this option in detail over the next month.  I have a query out to a magazine, which hopefully will be interested in passing on my discoveries.  I’ll find a way to get this information to the readers of this blog — just stay tuned.

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