Vera Wang says that she loves to travel and will go anywhere that gets her out of her routine and lets her see new things. It’s easy to translate “see new things” into see things in a new way, which will lead us to re-vision. But we all know that one. Like the joke about the two kids’ writers who go into a bar. (And before you ask, here’s the joke — The two kids’ writers go into a bar, the bartender says, “Let’s see some i.d. One writer says, “I wrote ‘The Bunny Who Walks in Your Head at Night’, and she illustrated it.” “Oh, okay. What’ll you have?”)

I’m thinking about the first part of VW’s recipe — the getting-out-of-her-routine part. One of the ways I finished the new STONER2 draft was by getting out of my routine. I’m a natural morning writer, and I’m at my worst in the afternoon. So I started writing then. I don’t like to write in coffee shops (what I call the I-Sit-Alone syndrome along with Will-Anyone-Ever-Notice-My-New-Socks-And-Then-Sleep-With-Me?). So I wrote in a coffee shop. I can’t imagine writing in a car while someone else drives. Naturally I tried that.
It was fun, all of it. And it worked. I also, for a change, handicapped in the a.m. and won a couple of yards. Pretty soon this newness will tarnish and turn into habit. Too bad. Habit is what ruins a marriage and I don’t want to have to take myself into counseling.
Happy Easter, by the way.
RK