I’ve spent about 21 hours on public transport in the last couple of weeks. Sounds horrendous, but actually, it was great. I got a lot of reading and writing done.
I’ve been interested in how public transport impacts writing since about 2015; I wrote my undergrad dissertation on how the act of travelling affects writing. Since then, when speaking to poets, a lot of them have told me they are able to write some of their best ideas while on trains.
In The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton suggests that “Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conductive to internal conversations than a moving plane, ship or train” (57). I often think about why this might be. I reckon it’s because we’re already completing a task (the journey), so we allow our minds to be free.
I know this implies that we have to be ‘completing a task’ to write, but if you’re like me, knowing this really helps with focus. If I stick something in my pressure cooker, I can say I’m completing a task; so, I can use the 2 hours of cooking time to write. It means I don’t get distracted by what I ‘should’ be doing (e.g. life admin), and instead prioritise what’s actually important: my writing.
Next month I’ll be booking a few trains places, and my notebook and pen will be the first things I pack. It’s the best way to just enjoy the journey.
References
De Botton, Alain, The Art of Travel. London: Penguin Books, 2014.
I love that Alain de Boton line - I think there’s also something to be said for liminality. You are neither here nor there on a journey - in the same way that the thing you are writing is neither written nor unwritten - it’s like a state of becoming that is perhaps better helped along by you being in the same state of liminality as the work you are forming. What do you reckon?