The walking reminder

I need to remind myself, from time to time, just how much walking is a part of my process.

There have been novels when I’ve gone for regular walks, because it was only during those walks that I could plot out the next scene/chapter/point what have you.

The ideas for this novel have been coming along pretty regularly, so much so that it’s only now that I need the reminder that, when the ideas start to slow down, I need to go for a walk.

Though I’d been poking at the novel all morning and for part of the afternoon on Monday, I still didn’t have a clue about what the next scene was. So I finally took myself for a walk.

By the time I hit the second block, I knew what the first scene was.

By the end of the walk, I knew what the rest of the backstory was, in very general terms. (This novel is told in the same style as Paper Mage, in that there’s a front story that’s happening in current time, as well as a backstory, that’s happening in the past, that’s the character’s time at Raven’s Hall.)

Today, after my walk, I figured out in general where the front story is going as well.

I know that other writers have this process, that creative thought comes with movement. I just wish I’d remembered it sooner, in this case, about a week ago, that this is a great tool to bring out when I’m puzzling things out.

Maybe next novel, eh?

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