Write on Wednesday – quick post from hotelroom

 

Becca in her indomitable way continues with her delving into aspects of writing and today she raises the question about the actual writing itself:

So, how about you?  How does writing fit into your daily life?  What’s your ideal time to write, and why? Do you “write on schedule” or “when the spirit moves you”?

Here I am sitting on the train to London, on my way to a meeting, an evening meal with the team, an overnight stay and another full day’s meeting tomorrow after which I will find myself on the return journey back home.  My first reaction to the question is:

HELP – where am I going to find regularity?  I know I should be doing routine, that a writing discipline is what we all need, definitely what I need.  But where am I going to get it, or rather, how am I going to implement that?  I try and write something every day, somewhere, somehow, even if it is only this blog in the middle of a train compartment filled with teenagers and huge backpacks on their way off somewhere, probably abroad by the looks of it, laughing, joking, eating; and now the girls have started reading books they’ve pulled out of their packs (who says people don’t read?  They always do on these trains) and the guys are playing cards or just minding their own business.  Other travellers have joined in Cambridge, a girl with a headphone and an iPod, a huge yellow bag and a rucksack she holds on her lap, as if it might walk off otherwise.  A man with his son, Japanese, also with travel gear.  Even I have my overnight bag as well as my computer bag. 

 

So here I am writing, on my laptop which I have pulled out of my bag and have perched on my lap, while the rattle of the train drowns the individual conversations that are being carried on, here and there.  We’re just passing a field full of glorious bright red poppies and after that it is back to the yellow green flat landscape interspersed with banks full of dark green shrubs and trees that block all outlook. 

 

So, here I am writing – unplanned, on the spur of the moment while in fact I was going to look at a work report, but then all of a sudden Becca’s question about writing seemed in need of an answer.

 

I would love a regular writing  routine, I am best at writing in the morning, first thing, and this is often what I do on a Saturday or a Sunday when I wake up with something in my head that needs to be translated into real words and sentences and often it does.  But that luxury is a weekend one, for the rest of the week I have a full time job, often away on meetings with clients, or interviews, and if not away, tucked behind my work desk writing reports, carrying out more desk research and so the week is gone before I have had much time thinking about my stories or my novel.  In between, I force the routine by writing a post for the blog, or by making notes in my notebook and so, somehow or other I do manage to write something every day.   Sometimes the easiest way out is simply writing a book review, because I have lost all ability of being creative and writing a review is almost like writing a report, the content is there for you, after you have done the research or the reading, it’s simply a matter of analysis, of good report writing.

 

And to be able to write well you of course need to read lots which I also do at all times, whenever I have the opportunity or when I am inclined. 

 

I yearn for my two weeks’ holiday on Crete when I managed to have my writing routine, writing in the morning, thinking and reading in the afternoon, interspersed with swimming, lazing around or simply snoozing.  That is my ideal writer’s routine, but I cannot have it, not for a while yet.  So I just bumble along and try to make the most of it!  Write when I can, read when I can and keep down a full-time job with lots of travelling and irregular hours.   How about you?

 

Even if I thought yesterday I’d not have any opportunity or time whatsoever to write a post, I’ve done it again – thanks Becca! 

 

 

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