Reflecting – WIPpet Wednesday

~ Elaine Jeremiah

Thinking

Hello all you lovely WIPpeteers! Hope you’re having a good Wednesday so far. For my contribution to this week’s WIPpet Wednesday, I thought I’d share 10 lines from chapter 7 of my current WIP Reunion, it being the 10th July today.

I thought about getting clever with the numbers but decided against it in the end cos there’re too many spoilers. Before you ask, no it’s not following on from last week’s excerpt. To set the scene, remember from a couple of weeks ago, my main character Anna and her best friend Melissa had arrived at a restaurant with Peter, Anna’s agent? Well now Anna and Melissa are on the train heading home. We’re hearing Anna’s thoughts of how it all went. And yes I am a tease!

Anna and Melissa didn’t talk much on the train journey home, which Anna was grateful for. She needed time to think about all that had gone on over the past couple of days. Looking out of the window soothed her reeling mind, and she took pleasure from watching the fields merge into one green haze as the train rattled along. She barely did anything but look out of the window for most of the journey.

Sometimes she was distracted by watching the cows in the fields huddled together as if for warmth, or the houses which in the distance were so small they looked like dolls’ houses. Occasionally she could just about make out the gardens next to the houses, some with the washing on the line flapping gently in the wind, everything in miniature from her viewpoint. She wondered about the lives of the people who lived in these houses. How long had they lived there? What were their histories? It occurred to Anna that it was possible to create so many stories just by watching the world outside a train carriage as you passed through.

So there you have it.  That’s all you’re getting.  Until next week when I may be kind and give you oh I don’t know, a few more lines maybe?  Anyway if this has inspired you to get involved with WIPpet Wednesday, the rules are as follows:  OK, there’s only one rule really which is that you post an excerpt of whatever you’re working on writing-wise on your blog which somehow relates to the date.  So I had 10 lines from chapter 7 of my WIP, but you could be way more creative than me and have 10 paragraphs from chapter 13 (the 10th day, 2013).  Feel free to use maths to come up with an amount you want.

Then add your name to this linky.  Thanks goes as always to K.L. Schwengel for hosting.  We love her.  We really do. 🙂

Published by Elaine Jeremiah

I live with my husband and dog in the UK. I'm the author of four novels, my latest being a Jane Austen fan fiction time travel romance, 'Love Without Time'.

30 thoughts on “Reflecting – WIPpet Wednesday”

  4. While I never spent much time on trains (a few rides here and there), my parents did a lot of cross-state (NY state) driving when I was a kid, and later I took the bus for the same trips… I love the way that a long ride allows for extroverted-introspection. Anna’s mood sounds a bit concerned… I wonder what happened with that meeting with Peter.

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    1. Wouldn’t you like to know! I may (that’s a may!) be kind and shed a little light on the mystery next week… The train journeys in the US must be (obviously) potentially so much longer than in the UK. We only have a certain amount of space to travel through.

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      1. Well, of course I would like to know (hint, hint!!).

        Yes, train rides can be longer here, but really, I’ve only taken the train between Albany,NY to NYC and from Albany to Boston,MA, so… about Birmingham to London or so, I’d wager.

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      1. Still was probably a lovely train ride. Trains here are really expensive. Not sure why… The US is weird; the majority of people here complain about the traffic and the cost of cars and driving, yet none of the private/public systems are cheap enough for people to afford (or if they are, they aren’t convenient enough to use).

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    3. Yes it was lovely. Trains here are hideously expensive too, we’re talking nearly £190 for a return ticket from my city of Bristol to London at peak time. Google tells me that’s about $290. It’s a journey of about 120 miles. So pretty bad in terms of price.

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      1. About $290? Looks like the £ to $ ratio is getting better for us… But yes. That’s quite a ridiculous cost. For about $50 (£30-ish) I can fill the gas tank on my car and go over 400 miles, and stop and see things that catch my eye. Yes, I have to actually stay awake/pay attention, and yes, I have to find parking or fix any damage, but the trade-off still seems in favor of a car.

        Makes me wonder about your characters. They spend a lot of time on the train…. Is this normal?

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    4. It costs us around £60 to fill up our car with petrol (nearly $92). My husband tells me at least 50% of that cost is tax. They do like to tax us in this country! In answer to your query about my characters using the train a lot, this is the first time in the story that they do, although my main character is going to be taking the train to London quite a lot as part of the plot. Also it’s easier not to drive to London and if you book the train a while in advance you can get a cheaper ticket.

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      1. Good point about London and the train. Having spent time in both NYC and London, I have to say London is definitely harder to be a driver in.

        Maybe I got the fact that you had Anna and her friend’s visit with the editor from both coming and going. As in, not a lot of the story, but a scene that’s very much to the forefront now.

        Our gas taxes are pretty high too; just there are a lot of subsidies that the oil companies have, so the cost of gas here is cheaper in the first place. We pay the taxes in a different form though, and it unfortunately doesn’t go for useful things like health care (or even decent roads…).

        I guess it doesn’t matter which country you live in–good things and bad wherever you go. I confess being a huge Anglophile though… My not-very secret desire is to move to the UK and live there in a few years. 😀

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    5. Wow – that would be fabulous if you did, I’d love to meet you! 😀 You should come to Bristol – it’s a lovely city (my home city, though I didn’t grow up here) and Bath is wonderful. It’s a great area to live in. For me, there’s a lot to see and do in Bristol. It’s a vibrant city. And you’re right – all places have their good and bad points. A bit like people I guess lol.

      I do have two scenes on the train, going there and coming back. It’s an opportunity for my character Anna to muse about where she’s going in her life. But during the first train scene, she’s mostly talking to her best friend Melissa who she’s travelling with.

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  6. Aww, warm fuzzies. 😀

    A great piece. I love watching the world pass by when I’m a passenger. So many random thoughts flick through my mind… You’ve captured the moment well.

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    1. Thanks Kathi. Yes your thoughts can be different when you’re travelling. You’re distracted by all the varied scenery outside which keeps changing as the journey continues on.

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  7. Pingback: WIPpet Wednesday: Unbalanced Variables… | Trueborn Jottings

  8. Ooh, why does she need some non-talking time? Why is her mind reeling? Also, great descriptions of the pastoral landscapes – that’s my favourite part about trains.

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  10. I love the way Anna’s writers’ brain is constantly working as she gazes out of the train window. I often find myself doing that thinking up stories behind people I see from a distance. A great description of the English countryside whizzing past.

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  11. Though it says nothing about what went on, the excerpt says lots about Anna. I’ve always wanted to travel by train, heck I’d settle for a subway… Closest thing I have tot hat is riding the monorail at Disney.

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