I am very sorry it has been so long since I’ve posted. I’ve been in Europe these last few weeks and intended to still write posts while I was there, but it didn’t work out. I had almost no spare time. I’m very sorry for that.
I had a whirlwind trip across Europe, “hotel-hopping” as I like to call it, from London (England), to Krakow (Poland), Murren (Switzerland), Lucerne (Switzerland), Salzburg (Austria), Vienna (Austria), back to London, Amsterdam (Netherlands), and Reykjavik (Iceland). I also had a brief layover in Berlin, Germany. It was an amazing trip. I took lots of pictures, went paragliding in Switzerland, climbed the tower of St. Stephan’s Cathedral in Vienna, rode on the steepest railway in Europe (48% incline!), visited a few Doctor Who shooting locations, and just had a great, although exhausting, time. But this all leads me into one of the unfortunate truths about life.
Life is distracting.
Had I stayed home I could’ve blogged, worked on my book, and spent time making money instead of spending it. But I still went.
So where should you and I, as writers, draw the line between life’s distractions and our work? When does our lonely craft justify some time off?
Obviously, there’s no cut and dried, one size fits all answer. But it reminds me of a quote by Ernest Hemingway, “In order to write about life, first you must live it.” Now this quote is only good to the extent that it doesn’t become an excuse. It’d be easy to sit back and live life and never pick up a pen or place your hands on a computer keyboard.
But this quote does stop the opposite train of thinking. Militaristic writing, holed up in your closet, forcing out an extreme word count, that doesn’t work either. You need time like that, certainly, but you also need life experience and interaction with people, the basis for your characters. So I urge you to stay healthy as a writer. Go to that reunion, hotel-hop across Europe, experience all the joys, sorrows, and situations that life can throw at you. And then, when it’s time to write, hole yourself up and don’t let the distractions distract. Stay disciplined.
So I encourage you to find that balance for yourself. Spend time writing, and then go out and find life inspiration, and then write some more. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
Happy Writing!
-Courtney
Courtney Hines 