Plotting while driving

I'm in California for two weeks on vacation -- I lived here for almost my entire life before moving to NYC a few years ago, so I'm seeing lots of friends and family, which is wonderful.

In NYC, I don't have a car (why would I?), so it's been a weird experience to drive everywhere again. I don't know how I lived like this for so many years, honestly. I never liked driving.

Except for one thing: I'd forgotten how creative I feel behind the wheel of a car. I get flashes of insight similar to what I've described here about riding on the subway. When I lived in Calif., I often had a tape recorder in the car so I could record my thoughts instead of trying to write them down while driving (although  I admit to doing that sometimes).

Oh, and one other thing: I love singing along to the car radio or CD's. In NYC, I have no chance to do that except when I'm the only one on the train car and I'm listening to music on my iPod. A rare occurrence, indeed. But I have been known to belt out a very good rendition of "Satisfaction."

So while I'm driving north through California, from LA to San Francisco, these two weeks, I'll be plotting the 4th story of The Pandora Chronicles and be ready to write when I return to NYC.

Let the mayhem begin ...