I’m not sure this is the best way for me to keep writing. Writing on anything but paper, with anything but a comfortable fountain pen gliding over smooth paper, can be – how to say – awkward? There’s a disconnect. I keep thinking about the next word, the next thought, whereas I used to simply let the words flow to my hand. I feel that I’m saying the words in my head first, to decide whether or not they’re fit to print.

It’s an interesting observation on this population of one, myself.

What pen and paper do to me is similar to a shortcut, bypassing an area of the mind that judges whether or not the words are legible.

It could be that I could write truly disposable morning pages, for that’s what I’ve been writing, pages that don’t matter, pages that I know will be or should be thrown away. How about bringing with me blank loose leaf paper, and a good pen? Then I could warm up, and switch to the keyboard for more seriously first drafts.

The thing is, I’m getting ready for a long trip with only a small backpack to contain all my clothes and all my work. It may be foolish, especially because the little iPod might be a thief magnet. The other electronics I plan to take along, a wireless keyboard for the iPod, a Kobo e-reader that would be lighter than one or two books, those devices of the 21st century would occupy a small portion of my backpack, be easier to hide than a computer. What? No Nikon camera with its advanced zoom lens? It weighs “a ton” – the new metrics for my weakening muscular-skeletal system. A ton is the weight of anything that might make the difference between acute shoulder ache and a mild one.

Yet if the Kobo was selected for its long battery life, the iPod too has been aging and once it communicates on BlueTooth and Wi-Fi, you can see the battery icon zipping to red in maybe an hour, with the “20%” message popping up annoyingly to remind me it won’t survive another paragraph of writing. If only I could write on the Kobo… After all, I just need a simple editor (I’m using Apple’s Pages on the iPod). Oh, anyway I also use WordPress on the iPod to update my blog.

Also I don’t suppose there’s a solar charger that could keep the iPod going. The thing is, power outlets are rarely located near where I sit to write.

To be continued… Perhaps there are alternatives I haven’t considered yet! After all, should it all fail, I can always revert to paper and pen.