As some of you may be aware, I take part in an online writers group. Every Wednesday night we come together to chat and discuss where we are all up to with our writing. Initially, the founder of the group started it up to discuss and work on short stories, but the weekly tasks are now more general – still involves writing short stories, but as an example: when we started up again for the year two weeks ago, we were discussing heroes and villains. Our task for the first week was to write two short stories; one where a hero from one of our pre-existing novels does something bad, and another where a villain does something good – while still keeping them in character. It was a much more difficult task than I anticipated, so I’ve still not finished it, but I am working on it still because it is fun!
The task from last weeks meeting arose from our discussions about what time we allocate to our writing. Most (if not all) good writers will say that around work and everything else, they had to schedule their writing time in, and they had to be strict with it – even if they didn’t feel like writing at the time, or had a creative block, they still had to keep soldiering on, and treating it like it was their source of work for income and needed it to provide for themselves. At the moment, my times are all up in the air as I am working full time again for the first time in years, and even if my car was on the road, I still travel a fair distance to get to and from work. Catching the train at the moment is a nightmare though. Often on the way home, I find myself still standing by the time I’m only two stations away from where I have to get off, so writing on the train in the afternoons is highly unlikely.
By the time I get home, I often have time to eat dinner and get ready for work the next day, before I really need to think about going to bed. It’s exceedingly frustrating, but I need a job, and I’m very lucky to have the job that I do (I have to tell myself this). Matt, the founder of our Wednesday Writers group, suggested that I start writing on the train in the morning. I was a little apprehensive initially. The idea of bringing my laptop out on the train, well, it made me feel a little pretentious, and I didn’t like that.
When I was younger and was always catching the train, I would always carry a folder with me, and I would plot and scheme so that when I got home, I could just write. I’ve now been trying to write while on the train, and I’m finally over the issues I have with using my laptop on the train, but I still feel uncomfortable actually writing my novel. If I have my favourite metal music playing in my ears though, I’m happy to plot, and I’m going to force myself to continue trying to write. I think most of it is just a fear that someone will read over my shoulder, and laugh at the raw and rough material I’m presenting on my screen as I type frantically.
Although, this morning I’m not even plotting, because I’m instead writing this up so that I can post it when I get home tonight.
That being said, I’ve still got about fifteen minutes left of my journey on this train, so I might go and attempt to do some more outlining for my From the Ashes series (which I condensed from a six book series, to a four book series the other day).
