I have always maintained that I can write anywhere. If I was the kind of writer who could only create in a silent study with the door closed, I’d never have been published.

The formative writing years crafting my skills were to the background of children’s squabbles, and constant interruptions. Later, the years as a published writer coincided with my career working on projects to do with the ornithological component of the Malaysian rainforest. That meant loads of travel — by boat, plane, car or on foot with a backpack; staying everywhere and anywhere, from 5 star accommodation complete with imported Dead Sea salts in the marble bathroom (I kid you not), to a tent in a peat swamp complete with bears raiding the food in the middle of the night (not kidding there, either); from bathing in a stagnant water pool half a kilometre away down a steep slope, to sleeping on bare concrete floors in a hut full of sandflies.

 Fortunately or unfortunately, editors in far off places don’t care what an author does in other facets of her life — they want manuscripts handed in on time, copy edits done in a turn around of two weeks, proof reading completed in a couple of days. So, a wise writer with another job learns not to be too picky about writing environments and to write in airports or trains if that’s what it takes, copy edit by candlelight if need be, and do the proofs at lunchtime in Starbucks. Or worse. (I seem to remember reading somewhere that Jane Austen wrote at boring family  gatherings by standing at the mantelshelf scribbling in her notebook, but I can’t remember the reference to check it…)

Luckily, our recent trip to Perlis State Park up near the Thai border was a lovely place to write. My husband was taking students on field work; I tagged along and wrote.

What better place than on that little porch overlooking the stream? (Usually the water is clearer than that, but it was raining.)

They mount up, those minutes — and so do the words.