I love the quiet rhythm or my feet on city concrete or woodland earth or sandy beach. There’s something in walking that frees my mind and allows it to wander. There is something wondrous in discovering what’s around the next bend. On a recent walk at a local park, there were two swans gliding on a pond. On a recent trip to New York City, I walked through the rain among multicolored umbrellas to discover a treed plaza tucked neatly between skyscrapers.
Walking and writing are related for me. I’ll be walking along when suddenly the ending of a story will occur to me. Or the first lines of a poem. Or the key to solving some sticky problem that I’ve gotten my characters embroiled in.
In writing, as in walking, there is a sense of discovery. My characters often surprise me. I write the first draft of a novel to find what will happen next, what unexpected thing will fall unannounced from my pen to the page.
A lot of writers are also walkers. How about you? Do the miles under your shoes translate into words?
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