I have always done my best writing outside in the fresh air, whether it be sitting at the picnic table outside my first apartment building or in a canvas folding chair at a campsite or even under the tree in my front yard. I try to always keep some sort of paper and pen on hand for my scribbles. I have written while taking breaks while hiking Iowa plains or on mountain trails in Colorado. I have written while sitting on sandy beaches in California or in the midst of North Carolina woodlands. I have written stories at rest stops while driving across the deserts of Nevada and Baja California.

It has always been easier for me to put words to paper with a pen or pencil than it has been for me to speak them aloud. Words seem to flow better when I am outside. The smells of the earth, the feel of the breezes, the sounds of nature around me, the sight of its vitality all seem to heighten the muse within me.

While I will type this later on my trusty computer, I write in a notebook with black ink currently in a small park just a short walk from my home. Fall is beginning to show its colors, but summer still holds tightly to its grasp as I sit on the ground in the shade of an elm tree in the midday sun, enjoying just being outside on a day off. It is relaxing as well as awakening. I am aware of so many things that seem to touch so many senses. The cool breezes blow through the leaves of the tree as they cool me at the same time the warmth from the sun trickles through branches. The buzz of the cicadas from their unseen crevices call to me like gentle roars. The cold crispness of the ice water I have brought to drink splashes against my tongue as I take in the colors of the late summer in the garden that is nearby.

There is also the sounds of humanity as I sit here. The sounds of the brakes of school buses going to gather students mix with the hum of a lawn mower cutting grass in the nearby neighborhood. Children play at the local playground happily as a teenager blasts his radio on his drive home from classes.

This is what I notice as I sit and stare and daydream, reveling in daydreams of stories I am creating in my mind and chores still needing to be done at home. This is why I sit outside, just to be and enjoy and write.

My muse loves it..

Write your own story.