For three months (Jan-Mar) I enjoyed the gift of life in a bubble; the opportunity to live where I didn’t know anyone and no one knew me.
Life in a bubble afforded me the opportunity to finish my next book—The Business of Being.
On April 20th I turn the manuscript over to my editor for her to knead. Then she’ll return it to me for a final polish, and shortly after that it’ll go to my publisher. We’re looking toward a spring 2018 publication.
On January 10th in the Looking for Laurie post, I provided the latitude (according to Bing) of my sabbatical location, with the promise of providing the longitude (according to Bing) today: -114.173143.
With those coordinates, the first person to type the correct name of the city and state of my sabbatical location into this post’s comments (not previous posts) will receive a signed copy of Note to Self: A Seven-Step Path to Gratitude and Growth for themselves or as a gift to someone else.
Next week’s post will reveal the winner!
Intentional or otherwise, have you ever lived in a bubble?
Note: Today I’m traveling back to Boise and will respond to comments tomorrow.
Tuesdays with Laurie 
WELCOME HOME, Laurie! I just can’t imagine how excited and over the top Len and Wilma will be to greet you upon your arrival at the front door!! OK, it’s the 28th, so all that I can repeat is my suspicion that you have been hiding out in Darby, Montana! If not there, then I can’t wait to read of your disclosure as to where you have been to write all of those words to give birth to your next book! Congratulations! 🙂
Jan
Jan — CONGRATULATIONS! As the first person to type the accurate city and state of my sabbatical location into the March 28th blog post, you are the WINNER!
If you’d like your copy of NOTE TO SELF to be personalized, simply send me an email with the name. I’ll get you the book by the end of the week 📚
Have you been in Florence, Montana? I am sure you will be happy to be back home. Congratulations on completing the book. It will be awesome!!
Darlene — Good guess. I was in Darby, Montana 🙂
Have you been in Darby, Montana?
Bo — Yes, I was in Darby, Montana. Jan was a heartbeat ahead of you in naming my sabbatical location. Thank you for playing “Looking for Laurie.” 🙂
Wow, we were in the same state., while you were nose to the grindstone working; I was out skiing at Bug Sky, MT
Welcome home from:
312 E Miles Ave
Darby, MT 59829
United State
Justdoit50 — Well I’ll be darned! It’s definitely a SMALL world 🌎
Congratulations on the 2nd book. You continue to be an inspiration to me.
Where were you? Where you needed to be!
Take care
Cindy — So good to see you here. Yes, indeed. I was right where I needed to be.
Safe perfect trip back to Len, Willa, & Evan. 🌳🌹💚🐢🐸🐦🐧( job well done )
Mona — So good to see you here! We’re back home safe and sound 🙂
Congratulations, Laurie! You must be feeling a great sense of achievement. I love the idea of being somewhere I don’t know anyone and nobody knows me and I suppose our travels through Europe in the van afford us that anonymity.
As for your location in a bubble, after reading other fo!lowers’ suggestions, it looks like I got the State right by guessing Montana a while back as something you shared reminded me of the film A River Runs Through It. If that is correct, then my knowledge of America’s geography is not as bad as I thought!
And welcome back home! 👍💗
Fatima — I just checked to see where A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT was filmed. It was filmed in THREE locations: Bozeman, Montana. Granite Falls, Wyoming. And Livingston, Montana (two of the locations were in Montana) which is where I was — Darby, Montana.
Safe travels home, Laurie! Good luck with your manuscript.
Merril — Home again, home again, jiggity jog. I’m back safe and sound, ready for a speaking engagement this evening 🙂
Sounds like an ideal way to accomplish much in your writing. Good for you!
LakeAfton — Thank you. With the freeeeeezing cold temperatures in Darby, Montana I had ample incentive to say inside and write, Write, WRITE!
Have a good trip!
Olga — Thank you. I’m back in Boise, safe and sound 🙂
All these weeks I’ve been thinking you were in Cottonwood, ID. What a difference two little degrees make!! Safe travels homeward.
Sherri — It was Darby, Montana (but Cottonwood was a great guess) 🙂
Oh how delightful it must feel to have completed that step of finishing up a manuscript and having had the time all to yourself to do it. I think all of us live in a bubble every day, every minute, every second. It’s called the here and now. Welcome back to the world and here’s to more bubblication! I don’t know where you were but it’s great that where ever it was you made it work!
Joan — Ohhhhhh, I love your word: “Bubblication.”
Today I’m in travel mode too, breathing inside an ✈️ airplane bubble. You are da bomb, Laurie; I admire your accomplishments. You’ve reached the stratosphere, in my opinion. ⭐️
Marian — I’m back in Boise, safe and sound. I wonder where you’re traveling to? Heading over to your blog now to see if you’ve given any clues…
I was returning from PA with flight delay of nearly 4 hours. Nowadays I treading a well-worn path between Florida and Pennsylvania. One day we’ll go on vacation, oh happy day!
I put myself in a bubble of my own making for many years when I avoided seeing many people, even my own family and friends . The only good that came from that time is I read umpteen books and wrote endless poems …I am happy to say I make sure I see people now …it’s much more fun . Welcome home …YOU …so glad you have managed to get the next book in the bag …I hope you are going to have a rest now .
Cherryx
Cherry — I’m so glad you popped out of your bubble because I would never have met you if you hadn’t! 🙂
I too selected Montana, and GPS suggested Darby. But, if I had been in your shoes, I would have found a place in a gateway community to Glacial National Park. However, with so many rivers running through the mountainous area, I gave up on naming a place. Congratulations on completing your 2nd book! Whoopi!!!
As for living in a bubble, I would say growing up in a very small town and attending a Catholic church and school, was the opposite type of bubble community. In that small rural town, everyone knew you and watched out for you.
When I first moved to Chicago, I initially lived around Lincoln Park and no one knew me except the small group of women I worked with. Living in a large city can be like floating in bubble communities of our own making within an ocean of other bubbles. This allows an odd type of anonymity in the midst of millions of people.
Audrey — I love the word picture you painted:
“Living in a large city can be like floating in bubble communities of our own making within an ocean of other bubbles.”
Thanks, Laurie! That word picture just “bubbled up”. LOL.
My sister in law Lives in Helena. Safe travels home..But MT in the dead of winter, wow! But I guess there are fewer distractions than say at a beach. Shanti!
Cheryl — Trust me when I say that the winter temperatures in Darby, Montana were incentive to stay inside and write, Write, WRITE! 🙂
Congratulations, Laurie. This place was the right environment for you, wherever it was. Producing a draft in three months is a major accomplishment! That’s not a bubble, it’s an atelier, with yourself as master teacher and student.
Shirley — Darby, Montana was the ideal writing space. The winter temperatures were incentive to stay inside and keep my nose to the grindstone 🙂
Welcome home Laurie! I was never terribly concerned about where you really were as I had a perfect place imagined from your weekly posts. Now I am just curious if the Darby Montana folks are right! 😉 Congratulations on getting The Business of Being written. Yahoo!
Terrill — The Darby, Montana guessers were correct. And as you said, it was the perfect place for me to be to accomplish the task at hand 🙂
Congratulations on the book!
The Coastal Crone — Thank you! 🙂
I admire your dedication, Laurie.
Leanne — Thank you (the freezing temperatures was tremendous incentive to stay inside and write) 🙂
Congratulations on finishing the book – well the first writing. Once editors and publishers get a hold of it, you can bet changes will be in the works. I’m going through that now with my third Beyond mystery novel – working on the publisher’s changes for a fall 2017 publication.
To answer your question: My whole life often seems to be in a bubble and then someone or something uses a pin and… Certainly when I write, I try to put myself in a bubble, but again those pin pricking gremlins hover close by.
Sharon — Congratulations on your up-and-coming book. Woohoo! 🎈
I had no guess as to where your bubble was – my bubble, when I choose to be in one, is always a self-imposed bubble in the quiet of my home.
Carol — My bubble was Darby, Montana. I’ve seen photographs of your beautiful bubble. Nice. Very, very nice!
Dear Laurie, I hope you “Life in a Bubble” has met your timeline successfully; including a manuscript that you are pleased with. Best of luck with your latest authorship project!
Sheila — Timed just right, it was like synchronized swimming (now let’s hope the editor and publisher like manuscript).
Laurie,
I love how creative and interactive this process has been for you and your followers! Congratulations on your finished manuscript, a job well done!
Yes you know the self contained “bubble” I placed myself in for the past several years as my pervious blog had stated.
Jeff — It’s good to see you here today! I’m glad for your recent post (it had been a while) 🎈
I’m especially taken with the graphic you used for this post. I see the secret to its composition, and whoever created it has a first rate imagination. I join the throng congratulating you on the second book. I would be in a total bubble in Montana in winter, not wanting to set foot outside the entire time. I do not do cold well at all! But I’m glad others do appreciate it, because Austin is bursting at the seams.
Have I ever lived in a bubble? My first year in Boston as a blushing bride attending Boston U as an off-campus student 2000 miles away from home, I was in a bubble of anxiety and naivete, garnished with a touch of agoraphobia. That bubble never burst─it just sort of melted away over time. I’d never thought of things that way, so thanks for the provocative thought.
Sharon — I’m glad this post resonated with you.
As to the photo… That’s the bathroom sink and faucet of the home I stayed in during my sabbatical. I captured it with my iPhone 🙂
What an accomplishment- and in just three months! I’m impressed! Montana sounds like the perfect place for the perfect word from Shirley: atelier! Excited to see more of your wise words.
Linda — It was the perfect place. And you’re WRITE about Shirley’s perfect word: Atelier 🙂
Congratulations on your book, Laurie! Montana air is good for you 😉
Inese — Thank you! And yes, the air in Big Sky Country is fantastic!
Sometimes, when I have a busy week in my home, and I am not distracted by outside world events, I feel I am in a safe bubble or cocoon. It can be comforting and also frees me from feeling bound to the things in our culture that can dismay me.
TimelessLady — I resonate with, “… frees me from feeling bound to the things in our culture that can dismay me.”
Congrats on a successful sabbatical. Turns out my initial guess was correct, Darby, but didn’t wait until after “Alex Trebek finishes reading the clue.” 🙂 (wait for the “go” signal to submit my answer.). Plus I only get a weekly digest of your blog, so I usually miss the original posting date.
Darby seems like my kind of writing retreat, although in my neighborhood, the North Shore of Lake Superior is awfully inviting too.
Good luck with the new book. I’ll be in line to buy a copy when it’s published.
Chris
Chris — Darby was fantastic! The cold, Cold, COLD temperatures kept me inside writing. In other words, I completed what I set out to do.
YOU got to go to the Writers’ Institute, AGAIN, this year (7 years in a row) and I’m tickled pink that you sold some copies of Castle Danger while you were there. Woohoo!
Thanks, Laurie.
Good luck with the book. The idea of getting away to some anonymous location is awesome. I spent a few days in South Dakota last year. It was fantastic.
Tim
Tim — South Dakota would be a-m-a-z-i-n-g! 🙂
I’ve never lived in a bubble, but usually a few times a week I wish I did!!!
Tina — I can relate to that “few times a week” wish 🙂