Contributed by Laura F.
“W” is for “walking but it is also for “writing” and in this, my final post in the A-Z Blog challenge, I want to pass along and recommend the best piece of writing advice that I have ever received, which is to use walking (or any other physical activity, no matter how slight) as a stimulus for writing.
Based on publication records, there appear to be some fortunate individuals in this world who never experience even the briefest difficulty in getting words on the page (or on the computer screen). I’ve read Stephen King’s On Writing and in that book he claims that he gladly – GLADLY!! – writes every single day of every year. Oh, yes, once or twice he told pesky interviewers that he didn’t write on his birthday or on Christmas day but that was only because they refused to believe him when he told them the truth. The truth is that he is eager to sit down and write every day and he DOES sit down and write every day, including his birthday, including Christmas Day. He writes EVERY day. Every. Single. Day. He writes every day without any inner forces holding him back, whispering in his ear that he’s too tired, too distracted, that dishes need washing and the dog needs a walk and he’d better finish reading that library book today because it’s due tomorrow.
I can only say, “Mr. King, I salute you. This consistency is part of what makes you Stephen King while I . . . . am not.”
Of course, I don’t want to be Stephen King. The very word “horror” fills me with, well, horror. I’ve never read anything of King’s aside from On Writing, and I don’t intend to read anything else of his.
However, I often wish I could be as effortlessly diligent about my own writing as he is about his. No matter how satisfied I am with my plot, no matter how much I love my characters, no matter how much I’m delighted that I have written once I’ve done it, starting is almost always hard for me. Sometimes it’s so hard that an entire day goes by without my advancing in my latest project. Or two days. Or a three. Or a week. Or . . . . . I don’t want to admit publicly how long I can go without writing.
Yet, even when I find the writing process most difficult, walking stirs my creative juices. Often I have walked out whatever inhibition kept me from my writing desk. Once I walked, I wrote. The equation has often been as simple as that.
Of course, many, many writers have recommended walking as a spur to creativity. Julia Cameron, the creator of the Artist’s Way, devoted an book to the subject. Yet Cameron insists upon the need to walk outdoors, and I regard that insistence as a serious mistake. For those who love the outdoors and for whom it is possible to walk outdoors, Godspeed! For me, indoor walking is best, preferably with some of my favorite music further lifting my spirits and stimulating my imagination. I live in a climate where it is almost always too cold or too hot to walk outdoors, even if one is an ardent fan of nature, which I am NOT. What suits me is walking in my apartment, in shopping malls, even in the stacks of a university library. Walking is the magic, not walking outside.
At times when physical limitations have made it impossible to walk, then less taxing physical activities have helped me get back to writing. Any movement, even simply the hand movements of craftwork, have often inspired and motivated me to return to my current manuscript.
Whether my feet move or my hands move, I almost always end a movement session with fresh enthusiasm for my writing. Perhaps you have had similar experiences. Perhaps you can share other suggestions for those of us who, unlike Stephen King, do not find it easy to write every day.
