Write as You Hike
Kinetic work
We headed out to hike this past week, pitching our tent in the exact place we did two years ago.
Hiking to write…
I can’t write when I hike. But hiking often becomes time for me to work on plotting and more. And this recent “walk” was rich. I’d hit the 40 page point in the new novel just before leaving. It’s been slow these past weeks and months. I’ve done what I don’t like to do: re-written and tossed and started over, the result of reneging on my decision to never again apply for a grant.
I needed a solid opening piece to send as part of my application. Grant-writing can be a dead-end STOP for me in my work; I go on with trepidation. But I have gone on, got the thing in and done, and shoved it off to the far-gotten corner of my mind
I suspect we all have particular points in lengthy projects: for me it’s 40 pages, and 100 pages that I need to strive for and pass, always with a cognizant nod to “done that.”
The first is a result of abandoning many projects just shy of 40 pages as a young writer, and the second is the push to get past two digits — a mental game almost.
Although you may have some other activity that works for you, hiking — for me — brings on a particular head-space. One of the most outstanding elements of that…
