Walking to write

Spring morning in Ocean Village, Gibraltar

Easter Sunday and here, in Gibraltar at least, it has been one of those perfect spring days: sunny skies, brilliant blue sea, a warm calm pervading the lushness of the upper rock, the lazy drone of a sleepy bee and the chirruping of young birds in the bushes and trees lining the road.  Not too hot, not at all cold.  Perfect for strapping the lead to the dog, shepherding reluctant teenagers out of the door and walking.  Just walking.  Not walking with a purpose except to fill lungs with reasonably fresh air and get away from electronic games and flickering monitors.  Not even walking for fitness or burning of calories, fat cells, cellulite or improving lung function.  Just plain walking, the kind of walking that lets you take in things you might see day to day, but somehow don't register - there's an old chap hobbles about with his equally ancient dog near where I live, I probably walk past him every morning, but wrapped up in daily worries, I rarely actually see him.  Today was for walking, and seeing, and breathing, and creating.

"Morning Walk" photo by Arvind Balaraman courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net

To write is to create. That walking helps the creative process is now well-established and there are many examples of writers who have worked out their plots or found their inspirations from walking: think of Wordsworth walking the Lakes, for example.  Henry Thoreau once said "the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow."  A Stanford University study, reported in 2014, found that there was a link to creative thinking and walking, although not necessarily to focused thinking - you might be able to develop a brainstorm of possible solutions to a problem (such as how to untangle parts of your plotting) but you might not be able to quite work out your son's GCSE practise trigonometry question that's had the both of you puzzling for hours.  

But for writers, walking is perfect.  An hour or so away from the mundane tasks that can so easily distract, the blood flowing, oxygen flooding into the brain to freshen it up and get it working that much better can do wonders to your plotting or character development.  Which means it's best to leave the mobile phone behind. There's also the chance to clear up all that clutter in your mind.  While you're walking, your mind drifts.  You may dwell on some of your domestic or professional problems, but the release of positive hormones that exercise brings means that you return ready to approach the rest of your day in a much more positive mood, and I'm not stepping onto the soap box of health benefits except to cite Hippocrates who put it thus:"walking is man's best medicine." Without a doubt, walking is good for you.

"Sunday Walk" photo by Simon Howden from www.freedigitalphotos.net

Walking also gives you a chance to observe and sharpen those powers of observations that are so essential to a writer.  You can focus on sounds, on smells, on what and on whom you see.  Walking is a time I can work out the next steps in a story.  It is the time of quiet that I can use to plan ahead, to straighten things out in my mind.  Sometimes I am struck by something I see to the extent that the words that spring to mind at the time might turn into the opening lines of a poem.  Other times, I walk like a child, with quiet and inquisitive mind, absorbing what is around me.

"Young Child Walking Alone in Forest" photo by chrisroll courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net

There are writers who never go out without a notebook, and I frequently have a notebook and a pen or two on me, but more recently I have just walked and avoided even the physical act of writing.  This is because I have been so busy with work and family that I have not had much time to think, so I think as I walk, and what I want is to see things and have my imagination sparked off, to hear things and let those sounds develop into ideas in my head.  There's a tramp who from time to time spends a night on a bench outside the hospital - he turned into a character in a short story I wrote some weeks ago.  The slurping of the sea against the revetement at Waterport in the dead of night became something black and sinister that slinks out of the ocean to consume every living thing it meets.  The stench of the fumes belched out by the bunkering in the harbour was written into a poem.  Walking imprinted those impressions without having to even think them through.  And it has meant I could allow myself that extra chocolate egg this weekend!

"Easter Eggs in a Basket" photo by Mister GC courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net