Greetings from Southern California!

You'd think being a home-based writer in City A or Town B or County C would be much the same. One still spends all day sitting in front of a computer. Seemingly, only the room changes.

I found out differently when I moved to the desert of Southern California—Riverside, to be exact—from lush and swampy New Orleans almost two years ago. The writing life in the two cities is as different as the climate.

Here is my favorite part of being a writer in Southern California: the view from my home-office window:


Another great thing about Southern California is that we haven't evacuated a single time for hurricanes since we moved here. I don't miss having my work interrupted for days with little warning.

My least favorite part of being a writer here? Definitely the long drives in heavy traffic! My new Romance Writers of America chapter is thirty miles away, and I reach it via a congested fourteen-lane highway. Ditto for my science fiction critique group. Literary events take place and independent bookstores are located primarily in Orange County or Los Angeles, with few in my neck of the desert.

All that time on the road, though, does have a benefit. I've listened to all the sessions on the 2008 RWA conference three-CD set and to several writing-related college courses on CDs while driving.

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Thanks for dropping by Novel Spaces! In my next post, on July 23, I'll discuss the writer's office.

—Shauna Roberts