Tag: Writing

What I learned about writing – Watching everyday life pass by

My writing needs that outside world that is rich in characters, scenery, objects, and language. To sit at a table in an ordinary coffee shop is to observe the tapestries of life unfold before you.

…

Just the other night, I was sitting in a restaurant, rather pricey too, and it was packed. Had I not been a guest, would I have gone? Possibly, but at the prices for the menu items, as amazing as they sounded, it would have used up six months of my allowance for dining out.

It’s not the first time I have been to such a place, and I’ll be honest, I love these sorts of dining establishments, and the food, by and large, is absolutely delicious.

But there is another reason why these places hold such an interest for me. It’s the people who also go there, from those who can afford it to those who cannot, for those who want to impress, and for those who want to show they belong there, even though in a sense they do not.

In a sense, I did not belong, but in another, I know what is good and what is not, I know what goes with what, and I know that you don’t go there and look at the prices. You know there is not going to be any change out of a thousand dollars, and that’s before you look at a half-decent Cabernet.

But I can spot the people who don’t belong. I can see the people who do, but are not graceful with it, and I see the people who belong and are graceful and polite.

And then there are the people who pretend they belong and are just plain horrible. These are the people one often sees overseas who believe they are superior to those who live there. It’s something I can never understand.

But I digress…

Quite a few characters are born out of my dining companions. Like the other night. The table across from me was attended by six university types, who looked to be lecturers, tutors, and family. There was the Queen Bee, the convenor, the one who sat while others deferred to her, and the hierarchy was very clear. She smiled, everyone relaxed, she perused the menu, everyone paused and deferred, the wine was her selection, where a suggestion was not to be debated, but a nod with ‘good choice’ was the response.

It simply made me glad I never have much to do with university types.

The table on the right side had three people who studied the menu intently. it was a dead giveaway that the cheap[est selections, which were not cheap, were the means by which they could say they dined there, and take the kudos from it.

They were polite, spoke quietly, enjoyed the food and the atmosphere, and were polite and accepted the very discreet assistance from the wait staff.

I suspect the wait staff have experienced all manner of diners, and we were lucky the more brash and annoying were not there that night.

Our waitress was French, with a voice that could melt ice, and had I been in a more flippant mood, I would have asked her to recite the menu in her native language. Naughty and probably annoying, I resisted the temptation. But I did ask questions about the food.

On the other side, there was a table of four, a birthday, which culminated in a very bad rendition of Happy Birthday, and the birthday girl looked somewhat embarrassed. It could have been a less enthusiastic rendition, but who does that on a birthday treat?

As it is an inner city restaurant, some of the clientele were people who lived in the nearby apartments, and a study of the menu meant that instead of spending a fortune in the supermarket, dining out could be affordable, and not have to cook every night. It was not the only restaurant in the precinct, and I guess there were enough that you could have a different type of meal every night for a month before you had to start again.

Certainly, by the time I left, I had at least another six character profiles I was going to use later in my stories. As well as the dining options, the wait staff, the wine types, and a few ideas about what I was going to try another time.

And the conversation? It’s always quite different when you’re eating and drinking in an expensive restaurant, as distinct from when you go to McDonald’s. If you deign to go to McDonald’s.

365 Days of writing, 2026 – My Second Story 18

More about my second novel

…

But, here’s the thing.

John and Zoe are nowhere near Vienna, Zoe having gone to Bucharest and then Zurich on her way back to see John, who was going to pick her up from the airport, and then both of them were going to Lucerne for a few days.

A reminiscing cruise on Lake Geneva had been on the cards, but there might not be time.

First, they had to do some work on charting who was trying to kill her, because she had finally come to the realisation that there is more than one.  Her visit to Bucharest yielded another name, quite possibly the person who was masquerading as Komarov.

Second, John was intending to introduce her to the new members of their team, the team he hadn’t quite got around to telling her about, who will be dedicated to research, investigation, and, via Isobel and the dark web, organising the hits.

John had decided that she should not out there be distracted by finding work, just doing the work.  He was going to take care of the rest.

Perhaps a good time would be over dinner?

Meanwhile, Sebastian and Rupert are on surveillance duties while Isobel is tracking down which hotel the lovebirds are staying in. As soon as she has the information, Rupert is on the job.

She then moved to track John, knowing Zoe would be with him because she had seen the passenger lists for flights from Bucharest to anywhere.

Both are thankful that neither John nor Zoe was in Vienna, which then makes it a priority that neither Worthington nor Arabella should leave, except to go back home.  Although they hadn’t established it was the reason Worthington was in Vienna, it was too close to the bungled attempt on their lives for them not to draw the appropriate conclusion.

Sebastian has a plan B that no one was going to like, not even himself.

Plan A was yet to be formulated.

Another excerpt from ‘Betrayal’; a work in progress

…

My next destination in the quest was the hotel we believed Anne Merriweather had stayed at.

I was, in a sense, flying blind because we had no concrete evidence she had been there, and the message she had left behind didn’t quite name the hotel or where Vladimir was going to take her.

Mindful of the fact that someone might have been following me, I checked to see if the person I’d assumed had followed me to Elizabeth’s apartment was still in place, but I couldn’t see him. Next, I made a mental note of seven different candidates and committed them to memory.

Then I set off to the hotel, hailing a taxi. There was the possibility that the cab driver was one of them, but perhaps I was slightly more paranoid than I should be. I’d been watching the queue, and there were two others before me.

The journey took about an hour, during which time I kept an eye out the back to see if anyone had been following us. If anyone was, I couldn’t see them.

I had the cab drop me off a block from the hotel and then spent the next hour doing a complete circuit of the block the hotel was on, checking the front and rear entrances, the cameras in place, and the siting of the driveway into the underground carpark. There was a camera over the entrance, and one we hadn’t checked for footage. I sent a text message to Fritz to look into it.

The hotel lobby was large and busy, which was exactly what you’d want if you wanted to come and go without standing out. It would be different later at night, but I could see her arriving about mid-afternoon, and anonymous among the clientele the hotel attracted.

I spent an hour sitting in various positions in the lobby simply observing. I had already ascertained where the elevator lobby for the rooms was, and the elevator down to the car park. Fortunately, it was not ‘guarded’, but there was a steady stream of concierge staff coming and going to the lower levels, and, just from time to time, guests.

Then, when there was a commotion at the front door, what seemed to be a collision of guests and free-wheeling bags, I saw one of the seven potential taggers sitting by the front door. Waiting for me to leave? Or were they wondering why I was spending so much time there?

Taking advantage of that confusion, I picked my moment to head for the elevators that went down to the car park, pressed the down button, and waited.

There was no car on the ground level, so I had to wait, watching, like several others, the guests untangling themselves at the entrance, and keeping an eye on my potential surveillance, still absorbed in the confusion.

The doors to the left car opened, and a concierge stepped out, gave me a quick look, then headed back to his desk. I stepped into the car, pressed the first level down, the level I expected cars to arrive on, and waited what seemed like a long time for the doors to close.

As they did, I was expecting to see a hand poke through the gap, a latecomer. Nothing happened, and I put it down to a television moment.

There were three basement levels, and for a moment, I let my imagination run wild and considered the possibility that there were more levels. Of course, there was no indication on the control panel that there were any other floors, and I’d yet to see anything like it in reality.

With a shake of my head to return to reality, the car arrived, the doors opened, and I stepped out.

A car pulled up, and the driver stepped out, went around to the rear of his car, and pulled out a case. I half expected him to throw me the keys, but the instant glance he gave me told him he was not the concierge, and instead he brushed past me like I wasn’t there.

He bashed the up button several times impatiently and cursed when the doors didn’t open immediately. Not a happy man.

Another car drove past on its way down to a lower level.

I looked up and saw the CCTV camera, pointing towards the entrance, visible in the distance. A gate that lifted up was just about back in position, then clunked when it finally closed. The footage from the camera would not prove much, even if it had been working, because it didn’t cover the lift lobby, only what was in the direction of the car entrance.

The doors to the other elevator car opened, and a man in a suit stepped out.

“Can I help you, sir? You seem lost.”

Security, or something else. “It seems that way. I went to the elevator lobby, got in, and it went down rather than up. I must have been in the wrong place.”

“Lost it is, then, sir.” I could hear the contempt for Americans in his tone. “If you will accompany me, please.”

He put out a hand ready to guide me back into the elevator. I was only too happy to oblige him. There had been a sign near the button panel that said the basement levels were only to be accessed by the guests.

Once inside, he turned a key and pressed the lobby button. The doors closed, and we went up. He stood, facing the door, not speaking. A few seconds later, he was ushering me out to the lobby.

“Now, sir, if you are a guest…”

“Actually, I’m looking for one. She called me and said she would be staying in this hotel and to come down and visit her. I was trying to get to the sixth floor.”

“Good. Let’s go over to the desk and see what we can do for you.”

I followed him over to the reception desk, where he signalled one of the clerks, a young woman who looked and acted very efficiently, and told her of my request, but then remained to oversee the proceeding.

“Name of guest, sir?”

“Merriweather, Anne. I’m her brother, Alexander.” I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out my passport to prove that I was who I said I was. She glanced cursorily at it.

She typed the name into the computer, and then we waited a few seconds while it considered what to output. Then, she said, “That lady is not in the hotel, sir.”

Time to put on my best-confused look. “But she said she would be staying here for the week. I made a special trip to come here to see her.”

Another puzzled look from the clerk, then, “When did she call you?”

An interesting question to ask, and it set off a warning bell in my head. I couldn’t say today, it would have to be the day she was supposedly taken.

“Last Saturday, about four in the afternoon.”

Another look at the screen, then, “It appears she checked out Sunday morning. I’m afraid you have made a trip in vain.”

Indeed, I had. “Was she staying with anyone?”

I just managed to see the warning pass from the suited man to the clerk. I thought he had shown an interest when I mentioned the name, and now I had confirmation. He knew something about her disappearance. The trouble was, he wasn’t going to volunteer any information because he was more than just hotel security.

“No.”

“Odd,” I muttered. “I thought she told me she was staying with a man named Vladimir something or other. I’m not too good at pronouncing those Russian names. Are you sure?”

She didn’t look back at the screen. “Yes.”

“OK, now one thing I do know about staying in hotels is that you are required to ask guests with foreign passports their next destination, just in case they need to be found. Did she say where she was going next?” It was a long shot, but I thought I’d ask.

“Moscow. As I understand it, she lives in Moscow. That was the only address she gave us.”

I smiled. “Thank you. I know where that is. I probably should have gone there first.”

She didn’t answer; she didn’t have to, her expression did that perfectly.

The suited man spoke again, looking at the clerk. “Thank you.” He swivelled back to me. “I’m sorry we can’t help you.”

“No. You have more than you can know.”

“What was your name again, sir, just in case you still cannot find her?”

“Alexander Merriweather. Her brother. And if she is still missing, I will be posting a very large reward. At the moment, you can best contact me via the American Embassy.”

Money is always a great motivator, and that thoughtful expression on his face suggested he gave a moment’s thought to it.

I left him with that offer and left. If anything, the people who were holding her would know she had a brother, that her brother was looking for her, and equally that brother had money.

…

© Charles Heath – 2018-2025

365 Days of writing, 2026 – My Second Story 18

More about my second novel

…

But, here’s the thing.

John and Zoe are nowhere near Vienna, Zoe having gone to Bucharest and then Zurich on her way back to see John, who was going to pick her up from the airport, and then both of them were going to Lucerne for a few days.

A reminiscing cruise on Lake Geneva had been on the cards, but there might not be time.

First, they had to do some work on charting who was trying to kill her, because she had finally come to the realisation that there is more than one.  Her visit to Bucharest yielded another name, quite possibly the person who was masquerading as Komarov.

Second, John was intending to introduce her to the new members of their team, the team he hadn’t quite got around to telling her about, who will be dedicated to research, investigation, and, via Isobel and the dark web, organising the hits.

John had decided that she should not out there be distracted by finding work, just doing the work.  He was going to take care of the rest.

Perhaps a good time would be over dinner?

Meanwhile, Sebastian and Rupert are on surveillance duties while Isobel is tracking down which hotel the lovebirds are staying in. As soon as she has the information, Rupert is on the job.

She then moved to track John, knowing Zoe would be with him because she had seen the passenger lists for flights from Bucharest to anywhere.

Both are thankful that neither John nor Zoe was in Vienna, which then makes it a priority that neither Worthington nor Arabella should leave, except to go back home.  Although they hadn’t established it was the reason Worthington was in Vienna, it was too close to the bungled attempt on their lives for them not to draw the appropriate conclusion.

Sebastian has a plan B that no one was going to like, not even himself.

Plan A was yet to be formulated.

What I learned about writing – Poetry – or my thoughts on it

I have often wondered what the interest in poetry is because I have read those same poems that people wax lyrical about, and they just don’t have the same effect.

But…

Then I did some digging…

Poetry requires words written in lines for a specified number of lines about almost anything.

Two, three, four, five lines, and more.

Words that rhyme, words that do not, there are rules and types, and then there is not.

It encompasses anything and everything. It can read at a fast or slow pace, professing undying love or utter hatred, and can describe something familiarly or make the familiar sound like something else.

Objects become feelings, and feelings become objects.

Some poets are famous; there are poets we like and poets we hate.  Some poets are just there.  There are poets we should read and poets we shouldn’t, though why is anyone’s guess.

There are poets we know, not because we have read them but because they are in the collective consciousness, poets like Burns, W B Yeats, Walter Whitman, Shakespeare, and Emily Dickinson.

I even know them because people who are in the TV shows and movies are always reciting them.

Perhaps I appreciate poetry more than I care to admit.

In writing this and taking a deep dive into the world of poems and what it is all about, I have come across some rather meaningful poetry.

Perhaps I might find one that encapsulates my life and ask for it to be read at my funeral.  At the very least, the attendees will be utterly surprised. 

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 128

Day 128 – A Thousand words a day

…

Beyond the Grind: Why Writing 1,000 Words a Day is Your Greatest Asset

In the modern world of “hustle culture,” we are constantly bombarded with advice on how to optimise every second of our lives. It’s easy to get cynical about productivity. We’re told to wake up at 4:00 a.m., take ice baths, and track our output down to the millisecond.

Let’s be clear: productivity isn’t everything. Your worth as a human being is not tied to your daily tax output or the number of rows in your spreadsheet. If you neglect your health, your relationships, and your peace of mind in the name of output, you’ve missed the point of living.

However, productivity is important. It is the bridge between having a dream and holding a finished product. For writers, designers, and creators, the gap between “I have an idea” and “I have a career” is filled with consistent, disciplined work.

If you want to sharpen your craft, there is one rule of thumb that stands above the rest: write a thousand words a day.

The Arithmetic of Ambition

A thousand words might sound like a lot, especially when you’re staring at a blinking cursor on a blank screen. But let’s look at the numbers. If you write 1,000 words a day, you are producing 7,000 words a week. By the end of a month, you have a 30,000-word manuscript. In three months, you have a book.

The math is undeniable, but it isn’t just about the volume. It’s about the compounding interest of skill.

Writing is a Muscle

There is a common misconception that writing is a magical act of inspiration that strikes only when the muses are aligned. Professional writers know better: writing is a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets.

When you commit to writing 1,000 words daily, you aren’t just filling pages; you are refining your voice. You learn how to cut the fluff. You learn how to structure an argument, how to build suspense, and how to transition between thoughts.

The more you write, the better you get. But there is a secondary benefit that is arguably even more practical: the more you write, the more you have to publish.

The “Publishing Paradox”

Many aspiring writers spend years—or even decades—polishing the same fifty pages. They are terrified of hitting “publish” because they feel their work isn’t “perfect” yet.

Here is the secret: perfection is the enemy of progress. If you are writing 1,000 words a day, you stop obsessing over every single syllable because you have another 1,000 words to write tomorrow. You become comfortable with the idea of a “first draft.” By creating a high volume of work, you give yourself the freedom to experiment. You’ll find that your best ideas often come from the quantity, not the agonising deliberation of a single sentence.

Furthermore, having a backlog of content gives you the leverage to build an audience. In the digital age, visibility is currency. If you have nothing to publish, you have no presence. If you write 1,000 words a day, you have a constant stream of content to share, iterate on, and refine.

Is it Daunting? Maybe.

It is perfectly natural to feel intimidated by the idea of writing a thousand words every single day. Some days, your brain will feel like a dry well. Other days, life will get in the way.

But here is the truth that sets you free: anyone can write a thousand words a day.

It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. It doesn’t have to be published in The New York Times. Sometimes, those 1,000 words will be trash. Sometimes, they will be the best things you’ve ever written. The magic isn’t in the quality of the words you write today; it’s in the habit of showing up.

How to Start

If you want to make this a reality, stop aiming for “greatness” and start aiming for “completion.”

  1. Set a timer: Give yourself an hour. If you don’t hit 1,000, don’t sweat it—just keep going tomorrow.
  2. Eliminate distractions: Close your email, put your phone in another room, and silence your notifications.
  3. Embrace the “Bad” Draft: Give yourself permission to write poorly. You can’t edit a blank page, but you can always fix a bad paragraph.

Productivity is a tool, not a lifestyle. Use it to build the life you want, one thousand words at a time. Your future self will thank you for the progress you made today.

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 128

Day 128 – A Thousand words a day

…

Beyond the Grind: Why Writing 1,000 Words a Day is Your Greatest Asset

In the modern world of “hustle culture,” we are constantly bombarded with advice on how to optimise every second of our lives. It’s easy to get cynical about productivity. We’re told to wake up at 4:00 a.m., take ice baths, and track our output down to the millisecond.

Let’s be clear: productivity isn’t everything. Your worth as a human being is not tied to your daily tax output or the number of rows in your spreadsheet. If you neglect your health, your relationships, and your peace of mind in the name of output, you’ve missed the point of living.

However, productivity is important. It is the bridge between having a dream and holding a finished product. For writers, designers, and creators, the gap between “I have an idea” and “I have a career” is filled with consistent, disciplined work.

If you want to sharpen your craft, there is one rule of thumb that stands above the rest: write a thousand words a day.

The Arithmetic of Ambition

A thousand words might sound like a lot, especially when you’re staring at a blinking cursor on a blank screen. But let’s look at the numbers. If you write 1,000 words a day, you are producing 7,000 words a week. By the end of a month, you have a 30,000-word manuscript. In three months, you have a book.

The math is undeniable, but it isn’t just about the volume. It’s about the compounding interest of skill.

Writing is a Muscle

There is a common misconception that writing is a magical act of inspiration that strikes only when the muses are aligned. Professional writers know better: writing is a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets.

When you commit to writing 1,000 words daily, you aren’t just filling pages; you are refining your voice. You learn how to cut the fluff. You learn how to structure an argument, how to build suspense, and how to transition between thoughts.

The more you write, the better you get. But there is a secondary benefit that is arguably even more practical: the more you write, the more you have to publish.

The “Publishing Paradox”

Many aspiring writers spend years—or even decades—polishing the same fifty pages. They are terrified of hitting “publish” because they feel their work isn’t “perfect” yet.

Here is the secret: perfection is the enemy of progress. If you are writing 1,000 words a day, you stop obsessing over every single syllable because you have another 1,000 words to write tomorrow. You become comfortable with the idea of a “first draft.” By creating a high volume of work, you give yourself the freedom to experiment. You’ll find that your best ideas often come from the quantity, not the agonising deliberation of a single sentence.

Furthermore, having a backlog of content gives you the leverage to build an audience. In the digital age, visibility is currency. If you have nothing to publish, you have no presence. If you write 1,000 words a day, you have a constant stream of content to share, iterate on, and refine.

Is it Daunting? Maybe.

It is perfectly natural to feel intimidated by the idea of writing a thousand words every single day. Some days, your brain will feel like a dry well. Other days, life will get in the way.

But here is the truth that sets you free: anyone can write a thousand words a day.

It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. It doesn’t have to be published in The New York Times. Sometimes, those 1,000 words will be trash. Sometimes, they will be the best things you’ve ever written. The magic isn’t in the quality of the words you write today; it’s in the habit of showing up.

How to Start

If you want to make this a reality, stop aiming for “greatness” and start aiming for “completion.”

  1. Set a timer: Give yourself an hour. If you don’t hit 1,000, don’t sweat it—just keep going tomorrow.
  2. Eliminate distractions: Close your email, put your phone in another room, and silence your notifications.
  3. Embrace the “Bad” Draft: Give yourself permission to write poorly. You can’t edit a blank page, but you can always fix a bad paragraph.

Productivity is a tool, not a lifestyle. Use it to build the life you want, one thousand words at a time. Your future self will thank you for the progress you made today.

What I learned about writing – You should write, first of all, to please yourself.

OK. Then, writing can’t be a way of life; the important part of writing is living. OK. And lastly, you have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.

Wow!

How do you make sense of that?

…

Perhaps somebody else has worked out what this conundrum means.

I’ve been trawling the endless collection of Twitter descriptions provided by my fellow writers, noting that there used to be a restriction of 140 characters.

How do you sum yourself and/or your life in 140 characters, or even 280?

I started out with a few catchphrases, something that would draw followers. I’m thinking the word ‘aspiring’ will be my catchphrase. But how will my writing encapsulate that? It needs a little qualification or substance.

I’m aspiring to be a writer, or is that author?  Is there a difference? Is there a guide to what I can call myself?

My life, quite simply put, but in more than 140 characters, is married happily, has two wonderful children, three amazing grandchildren, and a wealth of experience acquired over the years in parenting and surviving in a world that isn’t easy to live in.

To be honest, I don’t think anyone would be interested in any story based on those precepts. Actually, that sounds rather boring, doesn’t it?

Maybe it would be better if I were a retired policeman, or a retired lawyer, or a retired sheriff, or a retired private investigator, or a retired doctor, someone who had an occupation that was a rich mine of information from which to draw upon.

Retired computer programmers, supermarket shelf stackers, night cleaners, accounts clerks and general dogsbodies don’t quite cut the mustard. Should we try to embellish our personal history to make it more appealing?

It’s much the same as writing about daily life.  No one wants to read about it; people want to be taken out of the humdrum of normalcy and be taken into a world where they can become the character in the book.

And there you have it, in a nutshell, why I write.

I want to escape the mundanity of everyday life and become something, someone else, and, with a little luck, you, the reader, will come along for the roller coaster ride with me.

Or come out of retirement, join a secret intelligence agency and go and save the world.

Then write about it.

Then I’ll be living in such a way that my writing will emerge from it.

Yet…

Death and mayhem sound so much better in my head than in reality.

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 127

Day 127 – Stop waiting to write

…

The Myth of the Perfect Moment: Why You Should Stop Waiting to Write

“A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a work on paper.” — E.B. White

We’ve all been there. You have the laptop open, a fresh cup of coffee, and a quiet house. But then, the lighting isn’t quite right. Or you’re feeling a bit sluggish. Or perhaps you’re waiting for that “divine spark” of inspiration that feels like it’s perpetually stuck in traffic.

We tell ourselves that we are just preserving our creative energy for a moment where we can be our “best selves.” But as E.B. White famously pointed out, that elusive “ideal condition” is a trap. If you wait for the stars to align, you’ll be waiting forever.

The Perfectionism Paradox

The desire for the perfect environment is rarely about comfort; it’s about fear. Writing is an act of vulnerability. When we wait for the perfect conditions, we are engaging in a subtle form of procrastination. By convincing ourselves that we can’t write because the conditions aren’t right, we protect ourselves from the possibility of writing something bad.

But here is the truth that every professional writer discovers eventually: The work is not found in the perfect moment; it is found in the discipline of the messy, imperfect ones.

The Reality of the “Working” Writer

If you look at the history of literature, you’ll find that the greatest works were rarely written in ivory towers or secluded, idyllic retreats.

  • Maya Angelou famously rented cheap hotel rooms to force herself to focus, often stripping the rooms of any distractions to face the blank page.
  • Franz Kafka wrote late at night, exhausted after his day job at an insurance company.
  • Countless parents have written their masterpieces in fifteen-minute increments during nap times or at kitchen tables while dinner bubbled on the stove.

These writers didn’t wait for the world to stop spinning so they could write. They carved out space within a spinning world. They understood that writing is labour, not a luxury.

How to Kill the “Ideal Conditions” Habit

If you find yourself paralysed by the need for perfection, it’s time to break the cycle. Here are three ways to stop waiting and start creating:

1. Lower the Bar: Give yourself permission to write “badly.” The goal of a first draft isn’t to be brilliant; it’s to exist. You can’t edit a blank page, but you can always fix a draft that is already written.

2. Create Rituals, Not Requirements. Instead of needing total silence, perfect temperature, and a specific mood, build a “trigger” that tells your brain it’s time to work. It could be putting on a specific pair of noise-cancelling headphones or playing the same three songs on repeat. These rituals are portable; you can take them anywhere.

3. Embrace the “Micro-Session” Stop waiting for a four-hour block of uninterrupted time. If you have ten minutes before a meeting or while waiting for a laundry cycle to finish, write. Those small pockets of time add up to pages, and pages add up to a book.

The Bottom Line

E.B. White’s warning is a call to arms for every aspiring creator. Your life is not going to pause to accommodate your art. Silence will be broken by sirens; inspiration will be interrupted by laundry; your mood will fluctuate from high to low.

The “ideal conditions” you are waiting for are a ghost. Don’t let your legacy be a pile of unwritten ideas. Write now, write messy, and write anyway. The world doesn’t need your perfection; it needs your voice.

Searching for locations: From Zhengzhou to Suzhou by train, and the Snowy Sea Hotel, Suzhou, China

For the first time on this trip, we encounter problems with Chinese officialdom at the railway station, though we were warned that this might occur.

We had a major problem with the security staff when they pulled everyone over with aerosols and confiscated them. We lost styling mousse, others lost hair spray, and the men, their shaving cream.  But, to her credit, the tour guide did warn us they were stricter here, but her suggestion to be angry they were taking our stuff was probably not the right thing to do.

As with previous train bookings, the Chinese method of placing people in seats didn’t quite manage to keep couples traveling together, together on the train.  It was an odd peculiarity which few of the passengers understood, nor did they conform, swapping seat allocations.

This train ride did not seem the same as the last two and I don’t think we had the same type of high-speed train type that we had for the last two.  The carriages were different, there was only one toilet per carriage, and I don’t think we were going as fast.

But aside from that, we had 753 kilometers to travel with six stops before ours, two of which were very large cities, and then our stop, about four and a half hours later.  With two minutes this time, to get the baggage off the team managed it in 40 seconds, a new record.

After slight disorientation getting off the train, we locate our guide, easily found by looking for the Trip-A-Deal flag.  From there it’s a matter of getting into our respective groups and finding the bus.

As usual, the trip to the hotel was a long one, but we were traveling through a much brighter, and well lit, city.

As for our guide, we have him from now until the end of the tour.  There are no more train rides, we will be taking the bus from city to city until we reach Shanghai.  Good thing then that the bus is brand new, with that new car smell.  Only issue, no USB charging point.

The Snowy Sea hotel.  

It is finally a joy to get a room that is nothing short of great.  It has a bathroom and thus privacy.

Everyone had to go find a supermarket to purchase replacements for the confiscated items.  Luckily there was a huge supermarket just up from the hotel that had everything but the kitchen sink.

But, unlike where we live, the carpark is more of a scooter park!

It is also a small microcosm of Chinese life for the new more capitalistic oriented Chinese.

The next morning we get some idea of the scope of high-density living, though here, the buildings are not 30 stories tall, but still just as impressive.

These look like the medium density houses, but to the right of these are much larger buildings

The remarkable thing about this is those buildings stretch as far as the eye can see.