These past two months have probably been my most creative and productive when it comes to writing fiction.
Bizarre, given the fact that I’m currently travelling around South America, staying in hostels (mainly dormitories) where the opportunities to write and space to type are virtually null.
That being said, despite many obstacles in my path I’ve managed to wedge in a few hours each day. It has been far from ideal but searching for the perfect conditions before starting any endeavour is procrastinating, simply put.
Whilst I’m only a novice with virtually no real experience of writing comparatively speaking, I can still look back and see the virtual roadblocks I put up whilst I was working at my 9 – 5.30 comfortable job. It’s true what they say – Comfort Kills. There never seemed enough time in the evenings to read, let alone write. TV would wage a battle in my head and shows suddenly became ‘unmissable’. My creative juices dried up and it took a long time as I slowly weaned myself off the glass tit, and slinked away from the social media channels before I could finally feel a pulse in my brain again. I could think for myself.
Fortunately, in some of the most trying conditions these past few weeks, I’ve managed to connect again with my passion and perversely by spending hours struggling with writing, I feel more energetic like I’ve accomplished something and go about the remainder of my day with a relative ease and joy. It makes me happy.
At the moment I am writing this article in a dormitorio in a city in the North of Argentina called Salta. It has became a haven in recent times for party goers and revellers who flock here at the weekend before hopping across the border to Bolivia to take advantage of the rock bottom price of food and alcohol. Even now, as I type this with my good right hand in a cast (a broken wrist sustained two weeks earlier), I can hear them at the bar downstairs as the volume increases. They sound like they are having a good time.
But, I’m more than content plugging away into my five year old netbook which took thirty minutes of coaxing this morning to wake up, a sure sign if ever that I need to start saving my drafts onto flash drive lest they be lost forever.
Tonight, I will have an early night. I have written for four hours already today using the quietude of the early morning as others struggled in bed with their hangover. Tomorrow, I will do the same. It is very easy to be inspired while travelling and I have met so many amazing characters along the way. I’ve always been a better writer than a speaker, so I want to commit those characters to print before they are exorcised from my mind. Time to go. A drunken room mate has just walked in eager to practice his pigeon English.
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