The PhD can be a journey in more than one way. In her last post as the SGSAH resident blogger, Ebba looks back on an unexpected delight of her doctoral years: short-distance travel.

At the time of writing this, I don’t yet have a finished thesis. When the post goes live, however, it’s possible that I do. My writing process is messy and obscure even to me, and rather than making advanced writing schedules, I often let intuition lead. Sudden bursts of inspiration can come late at night, at a party, or on the bus.

It’s this final example that I’m interested in now. I’ve written much of my thesis on buses and trains. I dislike arrivals but love journeys, and the state of being between places often allows me to feel at peace to think freely and creatively. It also helps me imagine the Scottish women that I study, who may have travelled through some variant of this landscape many centuries ago.

Another thing I like about travelling is the fact that I’m not alone. What tends to happen when I write on the train is that the person next to me glances at my screen every so often, which has a strangely motivating effect on me. I always write with an imagined reader in mind, and to have an actual reader next to me makes my mind focused and my writing clearer (I hope). It encourages me to consider that not all readers are experts, and that my task as a researcher is ultimately to find ways to share my findings with people who haven’t been given all the time that I have to study the past. This idea is perfectly embodied by an interested stranger on a train.

The discussions I’ve had with curious travellers have been a fun and unexpected part of my PhD (shoutout to the woman on the 18.44 bus from Aberdeen to Glasgow who suggested I do a feature on Cleopatra, ‘a truly powerful and underexplored historical woman’. I’m sorry your date stood you up in Aberdeen).

If you find it a little scary to write your thesis next to someone, this is all the more reason to try it out. The thrill of writing before someone’s eyes might motivate you, even if your fellow traveller isn’t actually reading on your screen but just looking out the window.