For Writing Wednesday yesterday (10 September) I decided to take myself into Sydney’s CBD and plonk myself at various locations. I didn’t plan where I wanted to go – I just followed my nose. That’s what travellers do.

What I DID know – is that I didn’t want “cafe guilt” (feeling like I needed to feed on coffee or food in order to sit for 2-3 hours at a table).  My goal therefore – was to find some free public spaces to sit and write.

My other plan, was to write until I ran out of battery on my Macbook, or until 4:00pm (which ever came first) because as an incentive to stay out ALL DAY and focus on writing, I booked myself a massage in the city at 4:30pm.

Random Sydney CBD writing location no.1

I started my day at 9:00am by catching a bus and was seated by 9:30am in random location No.1. To make it playful, I posted a pic like this of my location on facebook and asked my friends to guess where I was.

I have to admit.. it took me til 10:00 am to get started with the writing as I was having conversations with my cousins (x2) and arranging meetings for next week…. and playing on facebook. Once I got through those distractions though, I wrote for 2 hours straight – without breathing. I completed editing part 1-B of my book.

Location no.1 was fabulous. A quiet, scenic corner of Westfield foodcourt at a time when there are not that many people there. The restaurants are just prepping, so they don’t care. I did eventually grab some lunchtime sustenance before leaving. I didn’t event start with a coffee – how insane! (battery at 46%)

To find the next location, I just walked randomly through the city, thinking about public spaces. I got as far as random location no.2 and decided – sitting in the great outdoors for a few hours would be just what I wanted.

Donde esta Sue B-Doobie en escriba Mercoles?

I posted this photo and cryptic message on facebook (in a mix of broken Spanish and French for laughs) and set a goal for myself – to complete the edit of C,D and E – which would finish off PART 1.

So I sat there, in Martin Place at a table outside Lindt Cafe from 1:00 – 3:30pm, only breaking to grab a revoltingly sweet dark hot chocolate. I FINISHED the preliminary edit of those chapters – they have now been sent off for reading!! (battery, 23%)

I absolutely LOVED working in Martin Place! And I’m going to come back to the CBD in future to hunt for more writing spots like this! I’m finding this a BRILLIANT way to work! Standby for more mystery locations!

So, I will be starting Part 2 editing of drafts – only 25 chapters to go! Will I make my deadline of end of October?????

S x

PS: If you’d like to keep up to date with  my blog – please subscribe to it. I will still post these links on facebook, linkedIn and twitter. Thanks for reading!