Cut Loose: Walk, Think, Write

Calling all writers—get out. Stroll, pace, or wander. We give the page a piece of our mind, let’s give our bodies a push out the door. Even a quick fifteen-minute walk can bring unexpected writerly gifts.

Note: I have mixed feelings about this post. As I write, fires and floods devour parts of the country. Hawaii’s recent volcanic eruption is producing toxic air. Some people are in respiratory crisis, making a leisurely walk outdoors prohibitive. In other places on the planet, it’s too dangerous to be on the streets. Unfortunately, health and safety issues prevent some from taking a walking excursion. So, for those of us who do have the luxury of walking, let’s not take it for granted.

Sever the familiar for a time

In his book, The Art of the Personal Essay, Phillip Lopate includes an example titled, “An Entrance to the Woods,” by Wendell Berry. Berry writes, in part:

“I have departed from my life as I am used to living it, and have come into the wilderness. It is not fear that I feel; I have learned to fear the everyday events of human history much more than I fear the everyday occurrences of the woods; in general, I would rather trust myself to the woods than to any government that I know of. I feel, instead, an uneasy awareness of severed connections, of being cut off from all familiar places and of being a stranger where I am.”

Move your feet, move your writing

Experiment. Cut yourself free from your familiar writing space and take a quick walk, even into another room. Look out the window, or better yet, open the door and get outside. Walking, especially in areas where trees, plants, and birds live, is one way to loosen up your writing muscles and relieve neck and shoulder tension (a writer’s plague, indeed). It offers practice in paying attention to our body’s movements and our mind’s ruminations. Many writers, like Henry David Thoreau, extolled the virtues of walking as a tonic for a person’s soul and for stories. Thoreau wrote, “Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.” For more inspiration from other writer-walkers, read What Famous Writers Know About Walking.

Give your writing some fresh air

On a personal note, while I was writing a complicated manuscript that became my memoir, brisk walks in my neighborhood calmed me—a mental health necessity. They gave me a break to try different ideas. Out there alone, pounding the pavement, I could shake out the dust of frustration, breathe deeply, and open myself to new thoughts about my work. I reflected on ways to be more innovative with scene construction, with portraying abstract ideas through dialog, and organizing chapters. And more than once, I coaxed myself down off that old familiar ledge called, “I must be crazy for trying to write at all!”

Leave your earbuds home

Instead of listening to music through earbuds, let’s listen to real, live songbirds. Let’s observe the color of clouds, other people on the street, how the air feels against our skin. Can we hear our shoe strings snap, snap, snap? Let’s allow our story-writing challenges to float around in our minds while our feet keep moving across the ground. New insights may spring up and out of the well inside us. Whether into the wilderness or onto our neighborhood sidewalk, let’s get out and enjoy the movement of our breath, our feet, and our stories.

Further reading

• The Magic of Walking by Aaron Sussman & Ruth Goode
• “I will arise and go now,” William Butler Yeats, from his poem The Lake Isle of Innesfree