Last fall, I made my annual pilgrimage across the river to the Surrey Writers Conference where Arthur Slade regaled the audience with a tale of survival – a treadmill desk saved him from death by writerly life. I had to have one – only my life was at stake.

For Christmas, my husband presented me with my own treadmill desk.

To my great disappointment, I could not write while on the treadmill, not even for a few minutes. Screen watching combined with the motion of walking, soon left me nauseous. I have no problem with motion sickness in boats or airplanes, even during stormy weather, but the treadmill desk took me out in under five minutes.

The treadmill remains set up, facing my desk, where it mocks me…I climb on occasionally but the dream of effortless fitness has evaporated.

So, I have fallen back to plan B – gardening as salvation for my word obsessed days of sedentary screen staring. Fortunately, I live in the pacific northwest, where gardening is possible year round.

The best thing about my writing room is that it has two doors. The second door leads directly to my garden. Gardening frees my imagination. It occupies my hands while my mind creates. Soon I am ready to return to my writers cave. I drape my gardening gloves over the treadmill arm, where they are handy the next time I am drawn back outside, to ponder, to dream, to get a little exercise.

I haven’t completely given up on the treadmill desk. If anyone has found a solution to the motion sickness side effect, I’d love to hear about it.

***

I am the final stop on today’s mystery writer blog roll.  Wednesday’s topic is James Frey and Dan Brown.  I won’t be participating because I’ll be getting ready to head to the Willamette Writers Conference in Portland.

Today’s roll:

Ryder Islington

Kathleen Kaska

Mollie Cox Bryan

and Me!

Thanks for dropping by.