I can’t think of anyplace I’d rather write than on a train. In fact, if I were rich, I think I would just ride back and forth all day long, typing away, pausing to look out the window at the scenery rushing past.

My friend Louise was asking me why train cars make such good offices–and I really couldn’t tell her for sure. Maybe it has something to do with all that clickety-clackety forward motion that makes the plot of a novel seem that it could also zoom right along.

Most likely, though, for me, it’s the fact that I am forced to sit in one seat for a period of time with my fingers on the keyboard. Left staring at a blank screen for some time, I find that words eventually come pouring forth. And by the time I get to where I’m going, I don’t want to get off. I need to keep writing.

All this is by way of saying that today I went to New York for the day, which meant that I had three glorious hours of train-writing. I wrote an argument between a mother and daughter, a description of a cross-country trip for a just-married couple, and a sex scene.

Just want to say: interesting to write a sex scene while multitudes gather around. At one point, I was typing faster and faster, probably breathing fast, when a woman watching me leaned over and said, “You must really like your work. You look so happy!”

Yeah.