Being afraid of new experiences is one of the most dangerous things an author can become tangled in. As a matter of fact, organization can be the downfall of the world’s next bestseller.

This is a problem I’m struck with constantly. I spent my first few issues babbling on about how I organize my documents in specific ways to make sure every single detail is captured correctly. It works for me, and works for many. But sometime organization can be the enemy of a little age old idea called time.

Let me explain, dear readers. When I write, I tend to write in the exact same spot, with the exact same environment: my small, dimly lit room, lying on my belly in bed, keys clicking away at the laptop.

Now let me switch my story here real quick. As I told you in the last issue, when I’m out and about in life, my characters come to life all around me and my plot develops from the environment and experiences I endure. If I hear a loud techno song blaring out of someone’s car, I start to picture this specific scene I’m planning in which David is led into a night club to meet a group of mysterious people who he’s informed are his accomplices. Sometimes when I’m out watching Sophie, my big slobbery Great Pyrenees, I think of Murray, one of the First Minister’s dogs in my novel. The way these events take place occasionally shape scenes or personalities in my novel. To put it metaphorically, the world is an auction of ideas, and it’s up to me to make the decision on the worth of the idea. Will this scene fit correctly in the book? Could it serve an important purpose? Could it potentially get in the way or contradict another point in my novel?

The ideas I’ve presented you with were all things going through my head when I began brainstorming for my column this month. I was sitting on my bed one afternoon, when one of my friends called me up, desperate to get a ride to St. Louis to attend a concert. Of course I was going to help her out, but… well… I’m down four-thousand words.

Now I bet only about ten people in the entire population of Rolla High understand what that means.

November—also known as National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. It’s a dedicated race to fifty-thousand words in one month (To read more about NaNoWritMo go to “Interview with a “NaNoWriMo Fanatic” at www.rhsecho.com).With some of my obligations towards ECHO, I’ve set my personal goal at thirty-thousand this year. However, as I said, I’m falling behind.

Now the problem had arisen; how was I to catch up on my novel if I was about to embark on a random journey to St. Louis?

Believe it or not, ‘Take the laptop with you,’ was probably about the ninth idea I mused over. When I finally came to it, my own reaction confused me a little bit. It made me… well… uncomfortable. As long as I was clacking those keys, I never moved. Never ever. However, my own mind was doing battle. Why does it matter?

Determined to meet my quota, I packed up the laptop and headed for the big city. On the way I nervously went over my draft from a few nights before, cursing myself for writing at one AM (Honestly, don’t do it. It’ll make you cry when you wake up and see the chaos). I typed a few paragraphs, but stopped abruptly in my uncomfortable state, blaming my writer’s block on the loud music.

We stopped at a Noodles & Company for a bite, sent my two friends away to the concert, and began to veg. After a few uncertain minutes, I opened the laptop.

That’s when it occurred to me. That’s when it all became real. The sights. The sounds. The smells.

There I sat in a café in downtown St. Louis. It was the perfect place to shoot a scene that plays not far into chapter three of my novel.

With eyes finally opened to the endless possibilities of my environment, I began to write like I never had before. I found myself leaving out words in my rush to fill the pages with my imagination. I was outside the café in Seattle, the place where David would stand restlessly in front of a foreign politician’s speech gathering; the place where he would step just a bit to close to a sniper’s range of fire; the place where his life would change forever.

Never be afraid to expand your horizon when it comes to environment. I say this as an author who is still learning, and has made a grand discovery—no, really; try it. Go out of your way to put yourself in new situations as you write. It’s one thing to experience your book and take home your notes, but it’s a whole different ball game when you have the opportunity to live it as you write it.