Trains of thought
"And where would it take me?" / "On".
In October 2021, I was feeling lost and really struggling with a draft of a new book. So I did the thing I do when I’m really stuck: I booked a long train journey. I used to conflate having a book crisis with having a life crisis. I would become obsessed with finding new ways to figure it out until it made sense again.
There’s something comforting about being on a train. Being grounded, plus the act of moving forwards, it propels my brain into activation mode. By the time I reach the final destination; I have produced something I can work with. For these writing trips, the destination doesn’t matter so much, it’s the length of the journey that matters most. It’s my best ‘hack’ for getting writing done (and not a cheap one at that — which is why it’s saved for emergency book deadline situations.) But I just know that if I can book a five hour train journey, with a window seat, snacks, AirPods, a good view and hopefully a bit of silence, it is usually impossible for me not to break the back of a difficult project.
I once researched ‘writing tips’ for a piece and I came across an author who used to board the Circle Line and sit on it all day long, going round and round and round. He wouldn’t get off the train until he’d finished his writing for the day. As a kid, I also used to love the story of how Harry Potter came from a small spark of an idea on a train between Manchester and London. There is something about trains that do give you a jolt of creativity. Headphones in, window-gazing, day-dreaming = ping of an idea.
It’s been a quiet week: lots of tea, lots of rain, sitting at my kitchen table, slowly editing a new book and watching the squirrel in my garden load up on carbs. Not much inspiration for what to write for you. At the creativity workshop I ran in Oxford last November with Ease Retreats, the theme was ‘creative unblocking’ with some writing tips sprinkled in. This week, I wasn’t sure what to write about, so I used one of those tips from the workshop: