How I Work: On a Yacht

I have multiple places where I go to research, write, and edit. I cant work in the same place day after day. One of my favorite quotes is the following:

I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine.
—Caskie Stinnett

One of my places is on a twin diesel motor yacht moored in Southern California. It’s a beautiful, quiet, and peaceful place. The gentle rocking of the boat, the sound of barking sea lions, and the closeness to nature are perfect places to work when I need to focus without distractions.

There, I work on a 27″ Retina iMac and an iPad Pro 10.5″. I used a Shure MV 88 microphone for podcasts and audiobook recording for Audible, an Apple Pencil; to mark up documents on the iPad, and an iPhone 11 Max Pro for tracking time for clients (and everything else, of course, like we all do.)

I collect all research in Ulysses, a great app for research and writing. I also do all writing and editing in the app, before exporting to whatever format is needed. I use Apple Pages when needed, and MS Word when I must. I use Aeon Timeline for mapping out timelines, and Things for project and task management. Because all of those apps sync through the Cloud to my laptop and mobile devices, I never have to worry when I travel—I know I have everything at my fingertips at all times.

Today I am working on organizing the research for my next novel, a historical fiction work about a quirky man who founded a tiny town in the California desert in the 1920s.

(Yes, I do take the boat out upon the sea on occasion; for brief cruises along the coast, to other coastal cities, and sometimes to the islands.)