When I was younger I liked three approaches to writing in particular:
When I schemed up the idea of going on a writing adventure, I was excited by the thought of writing on a train again. At around about the same time, I had in the back of my head a call for submissions from Blue Moose Books for stories about the seaside. I grew up – and currently live – by the seaside but they wanted stories about the NW coast of England. I had been to the Lake District before but I hadn’t quite been to the coast. In other words this was an area I wanted to explore. All the things I needed seemed to come together at the same time: the opportunity to do it, the inspiration, the need for a writing adventure. After I booked the train and B&B I realised Blue Moose were looking for new writers (that’s my dyslexic brain in action) but I was committed and did it anyway.
I did some research on St Bees, printed a map of the walk I wanted to do, and looked into eating options etc (coincidentally three of my friends had visited St Bees so I had some tacit knowledge to fall back on). I need a laptop for my writing shed so I bought one before I went so I could use it on the trains.
The first train was too crowded to write properly- someone was literally looking over my shoulder, but I did manage to write a story long-hand in a notebook. My messy / artistic handwriting allows me a certain amount of create license as it would be hard for a stranger to read it. My ‘What If?’ was: What if a woman forgot who she was? Followed by: What if everyone forgot who they were?
I bought a take away lunch in Carlisle (plus an emergency roll for later) and got back on the train. This time there was lots of room. I wrote on my laptop. The scenery was so amazing though that instead of a story I quickly switched to writing down sense impressions based on what I could see from the train. I focused on the detail, not on making sentences- especially as the train was moving quickly past what I was writing about. The trip along the coastline was particularly inspiring.
I arrived in St Bees and found my B&B – it was the old station building so zero walk from the train. I dumped my things, booked myself into supper at a local pub, and went to find the beach.
The sea was amazing – grey, rough, almost all the way in; the wind was up, and it was spitting rain by the time I left. The noise of the water on the pebbles was perpetual. I made some notes in a notebook and recorded the environment in photographs so I could make sense of it later.
I think I did some writing that evening but I was so tired from the train ride that I only did about half an hr – back to the memory loss woman again and a few random ideas for a story. Mainly I ate scampi and chips at the pub, and watched Celebrity Masterchef back at the B&B. More tomorrow.
