Have Office, Will Travel

By Deidre Woollard

One of the fun things about being a freelance writer is the chance to create your home office. I'm a Staples junkie and office supplies are better than candy for me, but often my office is wherever I am at the moment. The most important part of my home office is the stuff that goes into my laptop bag when I travel around the city or around the country. Making sure that my bag is always stocked makes me feel more confident and able to do my job.

The most essential component is of course, the laptop. Having a good wireless card is essential but if the Internet is a must for you, having a backup plan is also key. These days the Blackberry and Sprint's new Ambassador phone can also function as a modem (only for PC users) and Verizon also offers a service known as EVDO which offers mobile Internet at surprisingly fast speeds. I also make sure I always have a CD with me to transfer data.

Although it is cumbersome, I always make sure I take my laptop charger and phone charger with me. I bundle them together with an elastic band so that they are as compact as possible but always easy to reach. I also keep a USB cord that works with both my Blackberry and my camera wrapped up in there too. If you are away from a power source for long periods of time it may be worth it to invest in a backup battery but if you keep an eye out, you can usually find a power outlet somewhere. Coffee shops, libraries, and hotel lobbies will usually let you plug in and recharge (and most of the time they have wireless Internet, too).

Although I love my laptop and I use it for taking notes I also always make sure I have a pad of paper and several pens with me. Sometimes trotting out the laptop can be inconvenient or disruptive depending on where you are. Also having a pad of paper and a pen means that you can always write down things and hand off a piece of paper to someone.

No one goes into an interview or meeting without breath mints or gum but it's a good idea to have these in your bag at all times. You never know when you are going to meet someone who is interesting to talk to and minty breath always helps make that first question a little easier. Nothing destroys the confidence faster than a bad case of onion breath.

Keeping a small digital camera in your bag may sound like a strange advice for a writer but even for those who of us who are not gifted photographers the ability to also take a photographic record of experiences is helpful. Walk into any decent restaurant these days and you may see a food blogger carefully photographing dinner. The photos you take may not end up being a part of an article you submit but they might help you remember details that do not appear in your notes.

Obviously you can't carry around your entire home office with you but it also makes sense to have a couple of paperclips, envelopes, and even stamps with you. Having a dedicated envelope to tuck receipts into can be especially helpful when you are traveling around and need to keep track of your business expenses. It's much easier than trying to look back on a week of meals and parking garages and scrounge around your bag for the missing receipts.

One last office-on-the-road essential has a permanent place in my wallet. It's my Kinko's card. Kinko's has locations all over the place. From there you can copy, fax, print things out, and ship all sorts of packages. Who needs a home office and expensive office equipment? With my stuffed red leather laptop bag and a comfortable pair of shoes I am ready to go wherever the writing life takes me.

Deidre Woollard is a freelance and fiction writer living in Los Angeles. She graduated from Spalding University's MFA in Writing program and stories of hers have appeared or are forthcoming in Sojourn, Confluence, Pebble Lake Review, Words and Images, Phantasmagoria, the Mota IV anthology, and on the biguglyreview.com and www.storyglossia.com websites. She writes a blog on reading/writing available at www.thefictive.com and is working on several novels.

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