I don’t have a good explanation for it, but each time I fly as a passenger, I can’t seem to control these actions anymore. It just feels so good and natural – and thankfully I haven’t been thrown off the plane yet, but if I do get thrown off, I will scream as loud as I can and hold on to my seat arm with both hands, trying not to laugh as they drag me by the legs off the plane and into the arms of a money hungry lawyer who will take a large chunk of my settlement.

But seriously though, I am not sure why I always do this on airplanes, but I guess so far it hasn’t bothered anyone. I’m sure people stare though. Previously, it tended to happen at bars, often stimulated by a beer or glass of wine, and embarrassingly it has also occasionally occurred while in the church pew listening to the preacher. I must tell you though, that I always kept one ear open to the sermon, clinging to the inspiring words while it happens.

Word vomit. That’s right. As soon as I’m in my seat and people are still struggling to put their luggage up above my head, I whip out my black and white bound notebook and several black pens and we go at it furiously, pen and paper, words flying silently but forcefully onto the pages, and I don’t usually stop until we land or nature calls.

I wrote five or six chapters of my new novel on the trip to and from a medical conference, even though medical facts were occupying a significant part of my strained brain, but it seems the airplane brings out my creativity and I was able to switch quickly from left to squishy right brain and proceed to the thriller with larger than life characters filled with flaws, living in a story that holds on to you and won’t let go.

Seems it won’t let me go either.

Guess in order to finish this novel, I’m going to have to do some more traveling.  But I wonder how much better I would’ve wrote if I had some red wine in my left hand in the airplane seat?

SRC