So today I arrived in Tallin. My hotel turned out to be conventiently located smack in the middle of the centre of the city, only a couple hundred meters from the university. The room is barely the size of a walk-in closet, but I figure I won’t be spending much time there anyway. At least it has wifi access!
Fortunately I managed to find a restaurant to eat at so I could sit down and write. I’m the type of writer who (sadly?) only seem to manage to write a few paragraphs to a couple of pages every day, even when I’ve planned chapters in advance like I’ve done with this book.
For my next book, I will spend even more time planning it in advance, as I’ve noticed it helps make the writing process easier.
However, at some point you just have to stop planning and second guessing yourself and just sit down to get the words on paper. I’ve become much better at it, but I still have a ways to go. I hope to some day reach Ian Fleming’s level – he could sit down and punch out a few thousand words each and every day.
He taught me that when writing, you should never second guess yourself or look back at what you wrote previously, because you’ll always end up hating what you’re writing or what you wrote before. Just keep spewing out those words, and then you can edit later.
I already met a couple of students at the Tallinn Summer School, and right now I’m going out for an evening with some more students. Hopefully it’ll be a good one.
Mats out.
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