19 Comments

I always love to hear about other writer's writing process, not sure why but it's a slight obsession for me. It's fascinating to me how sometimes we (we writers, we people) try to think of productivity 'hacks', ways to increase our viewership / readership, get more opens, get more subscribers, and more than half the time these hacks simply dry out the flavor of our writing like an over done steak. I know I am guilty of it but I try to balance my desire to simply "write what I want to write" with something that someone, somewhere may actually want to read which may or may not be about my daily writing ritual of sitting at a wooden desk.

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I find the purest thought & best work I do is when my eyes are on the page and nowhere else…

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Aug 9, 2023Liked by Eleanor Anstruther

‘Missing him’. Painful and brave. We love them completely and then have to let them go. No one said life was fair

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Very hard.

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This resonates for sure! What I think I'm going to write and what I write often differ ... something happens in the process of actually writing it on the page. And that's definitely going to be different than if I waited until later or tomorrow to write it.

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What your son said "makes sense." I'm doing that right now. But, you know, I've heard no more common advice all my writing life than *keep to a regular schedule* to be productive, and I have *never* done that. (I've tried.) I write first thing in the morning sometimes. I wake up in the middle of the night and write for two hours then. I'm writing in my head *all the time*, as it seems so are you. I don't know where this focus on the minutiae of regularity originates. I suspect it's the continuing pernicious influence of Hemingway mania. Whatever works for you, that's the rule.

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I like that rule

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Aug 9, 2023Liked by Eleanor Anstruther

Do you not edit at all? That’s brave. Post a film being delivered I would have insomnia for weeks, turning over how each frame could have been different!! Your discipline is hard core! Bravo.

Armenia? I absolutely loved it when I

went filming there. Vodka for breakfast!

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I give myself no more than an hour or so from first line to post, so yes, within that I edit but there’s always a point when what’s there is there and it will have to do and tomorrow is another day… Armenia! Yes. For the next two years. I’ll be going out in Autumn to see him. I’ll call you - tips & encouragement please ! Xxx

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Dec 9, 2023Liked by Eleanor Anstruther

How wonderful to have a mother who writes so lovingly about a child.

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Aug 16, 2023Liked by Eleanor Anstruther

I do the same.

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A traveller alone goes faster and deeper, N'est pas ? Peace, Maurice

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Aug 10, 2023Liked by Eleanor Anstruther

Sophie agreed with me acc

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Aug 10, 2023Liked by Eleanor Anstruther

Kids

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Yup

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Write on! Thank you for sharing your process.

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Pleasure

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“My son thinks I should write these the day before and activate some sort of automatic timed post for first thing in the morning so that they drop into your inboxes when you wake up.”

I do this 😎

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It’s one tech leap too far - that’s the other reason. And I’m just not that organised.

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