When I’m touring round Scotland (I’m doing six different Waterstones in a this fortnight, and five libraries in the couple of weeks after that, all the way from Hawick to Portree…) what do I do on all these journeys? Isn’t travelling a terrible waste of time when I could be writing? (The next book, Lari, get on with the next book…)
I don’t think it is a waste of time, because I do most of it by train and bus, and that adds up to a lot of thinking and reading and people-watching time. And quite a lot of wild dog time too.
In the last couple of days, I’ve sat at a very crowded station watching a very odd traffic jam at the ticket machines made up of folk on their way to T-in the Park (all wellies and manky rucksacks) and some very fancy ladies on their way to a wedding; and sat in a quiet train watching a group of girls experiment to see how many people could fit round one wee train table;
I’ve discussed the riddles in the Hobbit with a very well-read taxi driver;
I’ve read a book about maths (for fun), and a book of Native American Coyote stories (for research);
I’ve gazed out the window and seen wide-eared deer in a field watching the train go past, really tall foxgloves growing by the track, and a short but lovely glimpse of three foxes standing still in a railway yard.
And I write too. I always have a briefcase full of notebooks, for scribbling down ideas, or a laptop, if I want to write entire pages. (Or blog posts – both this post and the previous one have been written on trains.) And many of my books have been written when I was travelling or at least out of the house.
The first scene of Wolf Notes was written on a train back from Aberdeen years ago, and the first page of Storm Singing was written in a corridor while I was waiting for my kids to come out of a dance class. So out and about works for me, just like it does for the fabled beasts.
So all this travelling isn’t a waste of time at all – it’s much more inspiring than sitting in my study. And with a much greater chance of seeing foxes!
This blog post is SO AWESOME!!!
You can certainly see some amazing things when travelling – I remember, years ago, my dad and mum taking me back to college for the start of a new term and on the way we saw a whole herd of deer running at full pelt across the fields next to the road. There must’ve been 10 – 15 of them and it is one of those thing I will never forget!
Alan
I kept my eye out for deer on the train to and from the Inverness Waterstones yesterday, but I was also head down looking at the screen to edit a chapter as well. So I didn’t see any interesting wildlife (except a few rabbits on the grass in front of the big hotel in Aviemore, and lots and lots of very white, newly sheared, slightly embarassed sheep). But I am sure that every time I looked down to remove an adverb, or tidy a metaphor, that lots and lots of deer ran past waving, then hid again as soon as I looked up! But your racing deer sound very cool!