The above picture is one that I shot from the New Orleans Riverwalk Marketplace.

I love traveling. Really. Sometimes, I’ll get to a point when I feel the need to take a trip. A feeling washes over me and I will think It’s time I took a flight out. Without leaving town, I would indulge myself by picking a place away from my house.

When writing is a factor, I need to know where I feel like going. I’ll pick a location that resonates properly in my spirit, as well as a place that facilitates my work.

My Ideal Writing Weekend

When planning my getaways, I take advantage of my ability to create my personal space pretty much wherever I need it. And that is a great help to me when I find that I can’t be alone, or when I don’t want to be. My ideal writing weekend stirs these things into the mix: writing tasks, atmosphere, people, solitude and toys. I really did include toys, because it’s not all writing in my writing weekends. It’s important to remember to play. And, it would have to be 3 days long.

My best writing weekend happened during a visit back home to New Orleans, Louisiana, with my parents. It was quite impromptu. I found myself on my own once I got my parents to the city. And once they were out of the hotel, I decided to pack to go off and work.

What was in my bag?

• Writing tasks: Everything that I needed to accomplish and some extra things in case I was feeling ambitious
• Tools: My dictionary, pens and paper
• Toys: Drawing tablet, pencils, camera

How did I choose my location?

• Atmosphere: It was a long time since I’d visited the riverfront and The New Orleans Riverwalk Marketplace shopping mall with a food court
• People: I like people-watching, imagining their stories. There are times when I just want to be around people, to watch them and hear the hum of life in my solitary work
• Solitude: I was able to keep to myself in the sparsely populated mall, or return to the hotel
• Transportation: Because it was so close to the hotel, it was a nice walk for me on a very clear, kind of cold morning

So, how was it? It was a lot of fun. I didn’t write a lot. I didn’t draw. I walked the length of the mall and took pictures, including the one that opens this post. This was about 12 months after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita had gone through. I was curious about the city so I stopped and talked with workers about the shops and eateries that hadn’t yet returned.

I had a really good time, because I did what I wanted in those 3 days. The freedom to just go with whatever came to me was exhilarating. I had the tools for work and play and the space to choose what I would do.

What did I take from this group writing project?

It’s time to go further. I had several different places I’d visit to write back home in New Orleans.  And now that I’ve really focused on it again, I think I need to plan an ideal writing weekend in another city I adore, Boston, Massachusetts, writing, walking and taking pictures along the Charles River. Thank you to Joanna Young’s My Ideal Writing Weekend competition for breathing new life into that idea.

The deadline to post your entry is midnight on September 1. And the results will come shortly after that. So link over to Absorbing Writing and get the details, because I’m sure that the responses will be very interesting.  When it comes out, I’ll add a link at the end of this post for you to see what others wrote.

Related post:
Nice, To Me