“I’ve figured out things that were stonewalling me during cross-country drives, and usually when I’m trying to pull an all-nighter to avoid traffic and get there in less time—maybe it’s all the caffeine and the mesmerizing white lines in the middle of the road. I keep a recorder or a yellow pad on the passenger seat and I talk into the recorder or write on the pad with one hand in big letters because I’m not looking at the pad and want to be sure I can read what I wrote later on. (This is not exactly safe, but it has worked.) In day-to-day writing, I also keep a pad and, lately, lots of index cards on hand so that when I remember something or something hits me I can write it down and take it home to the story I’m working on. I like to write whole scenes longhand for instant momentum—with no blank page or screen, you can roll right in.”
—Brad Watson, author of Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives (Norton, 2010)