Walking is a Writing Practice

My writing practice is not just about putting words on the page. In order for me to be a creative person, I have discovered that my daily writing practice has to involve the following things:

• Writing my morning pages

• Writing a minimum of 100 words on my current project

• Reading at least 25 pages of a novel

• Going for a walk

One of those things is not like the other -- or is it?

My morning pages help me organize my brain, and shake the dust out. My writing minimum ensures I make forward progress on my work everyday. Reading is ... reading. (I've talked before about how I think reading as voraciously as possible is really important if you want to write as deeply as you can.)

But taking a walk, if you are able, is every bit as important as the first three things on this list, for several reasons.

First, walking is good for your physical health -- and you need to be relatively healthy to show up in a productive way at the page every day.

Second, walking is good for your mental health -- and you need to be reasonably sane to show up in a productive way at the page every day.

Third, walking is great for creativity. Walking fires your neurons, it remaps your imagination, and sometimes something you see on that walk of yours sparks inspiration or awe that connects you to why you want to write in the first place.

I have deeply believed in walking as a writing process since I was in my twenties and saw Michael Frayn's Copenhagen on stage in New York. The production I saw in 2000 starred Philp Bosco as Niels Bohr and Michael Cumpsty as Werner Heisenburg, and Blair Brown as Bohr's wife, and I found it absolutely stunning.

Frayn's play explores the question of why Werner Heisenburg visited his old mentor Niels Bohr while their countries were at war, and what was said between the two on their last walk together, in the months just before Heisenburg failed to produce an atom weapon, and Bohr escaped to the US to help do just that.

It's a wonderful and recursive script that replays the possibilities of that last painful conversation between the two, as the two men move about the stage remembering all their former walks, together and apart, walks which are explicitly credited for helping both men make major mathematical and scientific advances that had enormous implications on their careers, and on the war.

I was so taken with the show I bought a CD recording of it and played it on loop for months, often while on my own walks, in my Sony Discman (remember those?) and in my car. (Recently I found the LA Theaterworks production, starring Alfred Molina as Bohr and David Krumholtz as Heisenburg, streaming on Spotify, which is also excellent if you want to check it out.)

Anyway -- if you are struggling with your work, with your spouse, with your child, take a walk and clear your head. If you are struggling with your writing, take a walk. Take a lot of them. Trust me -- I promise all that walking will walk you right back to the page.