{"id":7392,"date":"2016-05-28T00:46:33","date_gmt":"2016-05-28T00:46:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/?p=7392"},"modified":"2016-06-26T01:28:13","modified_gmt":"2016-06-26T01:28:13","slug":"why-this-2016-writer-is-going-to-the-woods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/why-this-2016-writer-is-going-to-the-woods\/","title":{"rendered":"Why This 2016 Writer is Going to the Woods"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Hen\u00adry David Thore\u00adau went to the woods by Walden Pond in Con\u00adcord, Mass. in 1845, he had his own, some\u00adwhat con\u00advo\u00adlut\u00aded, rea\u00adsons for doing so:<\/p>\n

\"jD7YV\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI went to the woods because I wished to live delib\u00ader\u00adate\u00adly, to front only the essen\u00adtial facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, dis\u00adcov\u00ader that I had not lived.\u201d \u2014 Hen\u00adry David Thore\u00adau, Walden<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One hun\u00addred sev\u00aden\u00adty-one years lat\u00ader, my rea\u00adsons for going to the woods are much sim\u00adpler and clear cut:<\/p>\n

I need to fin\u00adish a book, and I need utter qui\u00adet and soli\u00adtude in order to do it. Blunt\u00adly put, I need to get the hell away from all of human\u00adi\u00adty (to the extent that I can) for a month. I need to do this so I can see exact\u00adly how deeply I\u2019m capa\u00adble of writ\u00ading when not sub\u00adject\u00aded to the noise and vicis\u00adsi\u00adtudes of mod\u00adern life.<\/p>\n

\"art-of-peace-01-web1\"<\/a>I am halfway through my next book\u2014a per\u00adson\u00adal and very dif\u00adfi\u00adcult to write memoir\u2014and while the writ\u00ading has been going rel\u00ada\u00adtive\u00adly well, I need three weeks to a month of unin\u00adter\u00adrupt\u00aded writ\u00ading time.<\/p>\n

This, com\u00adbined with a strict media diet (no com\u00admer\u00adcial tele\u00advi\u00adsion, lim\u00adit\u00aded movies, lim\u00adit\u00aded music, noth\u00ading but a few great books and nov\u00adels: War and Peace<\/em>; The Art of Peace<\/em>; A Farewell to Arms; <\/em>Loli\u00adta<\/em>; First Love<\/em>), and an intense (Navy SEAL intense enough for you?) diet and exer\u00adcise reg\u00adi\u00admen, will enable me to fin\u00adish the book.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow and again, it is nec\u00ades\u00adsary to seclude your\u00adself among deep moun\u00adtains and hid\u00adden val\u00adleys to restore your link to the source of life.\u201d \u2014 Mori\u00adhei Ueshi\u00adba, The Art of Peace<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My plan is to come down from the Ver\u00admont moun\u00adtains in a month with the com\u00adplet\u00aded first draft of a book, a tan\u00adner and buffer body, and a more peace\u00adful mind.<\/p>\n

\"exterior-summer400\"<\/a>Cir\u00adcum\u00adstances have aligned giv\u00ading me the abil\u00adi\u00adty to do this. First, my best friend Jason Scott went to Japan, leav\u00ading me with his fine AWD auto\u00admo\u00adbile for the next month. Then, my oth\u00ader best friends Bri\u00adan and Maia offered me the use of their vaca\u00adtion house high in the Green Mountains\u2014with no vis\u00adi\u00adtors what\u00adso\u00adev\u00ader.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m bring\u00ading the cur\u00adrent man\u00adu\u00adscript of the book, pen\u00adcils, note\u00adbooks, my Mac\u00adbook Air, my print\u00ader, my favorite type\u00adwriter (a Roy\u00adal Qui\u00adet Deluxe), and a ream of paper, along with my cam\u00adera and a video cam\u00adera, because I plan on doc\u00adu\u00adment\u00ading what it is to go into seclu\u00adsion to write in 2016\u2014to show myself writ\u00ading, tan\u00adning, work\u00ading out, cook\u00ading, read\u00ading, and in gen\u00ader\u00adal doing all of the things a writer does when in soli\u00adtude fin\u00adish\u00ading a book.<\/p>\n

I may or may not write about the expe\u00adri\u00adence when I return. Such an entry will prob\u00ada\u00adbly take the form of a com\u00adplet\u00aded video about my sojourn.<\/p>\n

\"typewriter-field1\"<\/a>This is some\u00adthing that I and just about all writ\u00aders fan\u00adta\u00adsize about doing: retreat\u00ading into the wilds to do noth\u00ading but write. My sense is that there are very few of us with the self-dis\u00adci\u00adpline nec\u00ades\u00adsary to make the tenure a pro\u00adduc\u00adtive one. I\u2019m con\u00adfi\u00addent that I\u2019m one of these writ\u00aders. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

Unlike Thore\u00adau, I have win\u00addow screens, few\u00ader bugs, an auto\u00admo\u00adbile, and a hot tub to make my sojourn slight\u00adly<\/em> more com\u00adfort\u00adable.<\/p>\n

I only hope the writ\u00ading goes well.<\/p>\n

Wish me luck.<\/p>\n

\u2014Chris Orcutt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Hen\u00adry David Thore\u00adau went to the woods by Walden Pond in Con\u00adcord, Mass. in 1845, he had his own, some\u00adwhat con\u00advo\u00adlut\u00aded, rea\u00adsons for doing\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,19,22,23,7,76,32,26,13,14,233,15],"tags":[286,120,195,229,94,283,111,155,284,281,285,282,221,93],"class_list":["post-7392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-craft","category-fiction","category-pencils","category-pens","category-personal","category-process","category-travel","category-typewriters","category-writers","category-writingexperiences","category-writing-life","category-writingtools","tag-286","tag-authors","tag-book","tag-books","tag-chris-orcutt","tag-isolation","tag-memoir-2","tag-orcutt","tag-solitude","tag-thoreau","tag-walden","tag-went-to-the-woods","tag-writers-life","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7392"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7433,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7392\/revisions\/7433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}