08 March 2010 - TRAIN OF THOUGHT by Richard Aronowitz

To celebrate the launch of Richard Aronowitz's second novel, It's Just the Beating of My Heart, we are lucky enough to have the author himself here on the Inpress blog. And while most authors might prefer the peace and quiet of a gloomy study or a woodland sanctuary, both this and his critically acclaimed debut, Five Amber Beads, were written almost entirely in the glare and bustle aboard commuter trains between London and his Cambridgeshire home. To mark this incredible feat of concentration and human endurance, here is the man himself and the first part of his Train of Thought.

I have written both of my novels on my regular commute between my home in Cambridge and my place of work in London. I wrote them both longhand and then typed them up on my laptop, and if I was at the word-processing stage I always chose one of the single seats by the electric-doored lavatory, so that my fellow passengers would not rubber-neck as I typed. You would be surprised at how openly and keenly they will do that, as if you are a channel for the words of God, Paris Hilton or Ryan Giggs.

Sitting directly outside the door of the lavatory affords you an insight into man at his most exposed. Recently, I was composing a sentence when a pretty girl walked up to the electric door of the cubicle and asked another single-seater whether anyone was using the facilities. When answered with a 'yes', she pressed 'open' anyway and exposed the bare buttocks of a Chinese male tourist who was, so to speak, jockeying the horse. Unflustered, he continued and the door slid slowly shut again at her giggling prompting. He had forgotten to press 'lock'. Another of the dangers of leaving the analogue age.

You will notice that both main protagonists of my novels to-date are commuters. They sit well away from the loos.