This is The Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 6: Walk It Off.

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Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps aspiring writers to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I am your host, Sarah Werner, and I’m really happy that you’re listening today. Sorry if that sounds super dorky, but I am really happy that you are giving up your time to listen to my podcast. You should just know that you are awesome.

Today’s podcast is called “Walk It Off”. That is a phrase that I heard a lot growing up as a child. If you’ve ever seen “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, there’s kind of this running gag where the father uses Windex as a cure all. Like, “Oh, you have a pimple, let’s spray some Windex on it.” For me growing up, my dad’s cure all was take a walk. Walk it off. You scraped your elbow, walk it off. You’re bored. You’re tired. Don’t just mope around the house, go outside and take a walk. Walk it off. You get the picture.

So it is perhaps unsurprising to know that my dad had us go for a walk with him just around the neighborhood every night. He’d come home from work, we’d eat dinner, and then we’d go for a walk. In the summer, sometimes that walk would be to Dairy Queen. In the winter, it would be downtown to look at the lights in the square. Those walks made for some of the most enduring memories of my dad, and also have trained me to really love going on walks. I feel compelled to share this with you. I’m not quite sure that I should, it’s not weird or anything. But, it’s maybe a little weird. Just as my father and I went on walks every day, my grandfather used to go on walks every day. I think this is where my dad got it from. Even though when my grandpa went on his daily walk, he would dumpster dive. I don’t necessarily recommend this. In fact, I probably certainly do not recommend that you dumpster dive, unless you are really up on your tetanus shots. But walking is somewhat of a family tradition.

I now give this advice to my husband, who is also a full time writer/freelance journalist. Are you stuck on your novel? Take a walk. Walk it off. And when he does, I notice that he comes back not just re-energized, but with a new energy. What I mean by that is he returns from walks refreshed and ready to write, and if not chock-full of ideas, then at least ready to continue. I never intend to sound new age-y, but I kind of have learned, in my own way, their energy begets energy. And so, expanding a little bit of physical energy on a walk can do wonders for renewing your mental energy for writing.

I don’t know why this is. I don’t know if it is physically the increased blood flow to your brain, the increased oxygen to your brain. I don’t know if it’s the fact that meditating on your novel while in physical kinetic motion does something different for the way that you process ideas. Or it could be because while you’re out on a walk, you are experiencing the world. You are in the world, experiencing it. Seeing new things, or, seeing old things with new interpretations.

I want to caution you on this last one. Don’t ever go on a walk expecting to be inspired. I’ve done that before and it’s just really disappointing that when I go for a walk around my block, I just see the same houses and the same chain link fences and the same graveyard, because we live on the edge of a graveyard. But sometimes I’ll be followed by a cat. Or sometimes I’ll notice the fine moss that has grown on the bark of a tree. Or sometimes I will see a shadowy figure lying in an alley. Or the rain on the grass will catch the light in a new way. Or I’ll breathe in the fresh air and, simply put, have a revelation about how to deal with a problem in the novel that I’m writing.

A lot of writers have talked about the power of going on a walk. It’s the simplest thing in the world, and yet it’s helpful. In 1862, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote an essay about Henry David Thoreau. He called out his habit of walking. Specifically, he said, “The length of his walk uniformly made the length of his writing. If shut up in the house, he did not write at all.” I don’t know about you, but I totally identified with this, and to got me intrigued about Thoreau. Henry David Thoreau was a 19th century author/philosopher/transcendentalist/other stuff, and all around smart dude. He wrote a really lovely and thoughtful essay on walking. From Thoreau’s essay on walking, which first began as a lecture delivered at the Concord Lyceum in April of 1851, and later evolved into an essay published by the Atlantic Monthly in 1862:

“I have met but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of walking. That is, of taking walks. Who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering. No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and independence which are the capital in this profession. I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits unless I spend four hours a day at least, and commonly more than that. Sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.

“But the walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking exercise as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated hours, as the swinging of dumbbells or chairs, but is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day. If you would get exercise, go in search of the Springs of life. Think of a man swinging dumbbells for his health, when those Springs are bubbling up in far off pastures unsought by him. Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only beast which ruminates when walking. When a traveler asked Wordsworth’s servant to show him her master’s study, she answered, ‘Here is his library, but his study is out of doors.'”

And from Thoreau’s journals, August, 1851: “How vain it is to sit down and write when you have not stood up to live. Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow. As if I had given vent to the stream at the lower end, and consequently, new fountains float into it at the upper. Only while we are an action is the circulation perfect. The writing which consists with habitual sitting is mechanical, wooden, and dull to read.” The idea of something like walking being an integral part of writing at first seems maybe a little silly.

And again, as with so many other things, it’s not a silver bullet. It’s not an immediate fix to your writer’s block. But I think it’s important enough to make it a part of your daily writing routine. Whether you’re like my dad and you go for a walk each evening with your children. Or if it’s five in the morning and you’re outside taking your dog for a walk. Or if you just try to fit in a half hour walk during your lunch break at work. Or if you’re like me and you live somewhere super cold and you can’t walk outside during the winter without dying, my husband and I will often go to the mall and walk around and people watch. Wherever you go, make sure there are things to be seen or thoughts to be thought. Again, I can’t guarantee blinding inspiration each time you go for a walk, but if you make a habit of it and if you go enough times, once in awhile, that inspiration will hit you and you’ll be so glad that you decided to go for a walk.

I try not to get too academic because this is not a college course, but I read a lovely essay lately by A.R. Ammons. It appears in the book Claims for Poetry, compiled by Poet Laureate Donald Hall. The book is a bright acid green with bright yellow lettering and it looks scary and terrible, but it is full of truly thoughtful essays on poetry. I don’t know if you just heard that car going by. I record my podcast from my office and I live on a very busy street and there is a hill outside, and everybody just floors it when they go up this hill. So anyone who’s muffler doesn’t work gets featured on my podcast.

This essay by A.R. Ammons was published in 1967 and it’s called “A Poem Is A Walk”. He kind of pontificates for a long time on various things, “What is the essence of nothing,” blah, blah, blah. But then he says something that I found interesting. He asks, “How does a poem resemble a walk? First, both a poem and a walk each makes us use the whole body. As with a walk, a poem is not simply a mental activity, it has body and rhythm, feeling, sound, mind, conscious and subconscious. Secondly, every walk is unreproducible, as is every poem. If a poem is each time new, then it is necessarily an active discovery. A chance taken. A chance that may lead to fulfillment or disaster. The poet exposes himself to that risk.

“Thirdly, the third resemblance between a poem and a walk is that each turns one or more times, and eventually returns. And fourthly, the fourth resemblance has to do with the motion common to poems and walks. The motion may be lumbering, clipped, wavering, tripping, mechanical, dance-like, awkward, staggering, slow, et cetera. But the motion only occurs in the body of the walker, or in the body of the words. It can’t be extracted or contemplated. It is non-reproducible and non-logical. It can’t be translated into another body. There is only one way to know it, and that is to enter into it. To summarize, a walk involves the whole person. It is not reproducible. Its shape occurs and unfolds, and it has emotion characteristic of the walker.” Again, that is from a 1967 essay by A.R. Ammons, published in Claims for Poetry by Donald Hall.

I really like thinking of taking a walk as a metaphor for writing a poem, and the thought of writing a poem as a metaphor for taking a walk. Not because it provides some unnecessarily complicated view of the relationship between walking and writing. And not because I just think it’s limited to poetry, because on a larger scale, it also applies to short fiction, to longer fiction, to novels, to anything else you’re writing. But it speaks to my own experience of walking and moving as an integral part of the writing process overall. I think even over all of that, the walking and the thinking of writing as walking, and walking as writing, I think there’s also something to be said for the act of being in motion. I don’t know about you, but I go on a lot of road trips because I don’t have the money to buy plane tickets.

My husband and I drive everywhere we can. It’s not uncommon for us to take 17, 20, 25 hour road trips from state to state, across the country to see family and friends. I swear, I get the freshest, newest, and most astounding ideas for writing while I am in that passenger seat looking out at the landscape flying by. There’s something about movement. There’s something about a change of scenery. There’s something about leaving the comfort of your own home to find adventure, to find something new, and to translate those new adventurous things onto the page for your reader. So go ahead, go for a walk. Walk it off. Live your life. Explore the life you’re living and share that with your readers.

This week’s book of the week is not Claims for Poetry. Ha ha, I will not make you read that book. It is very… I mean, it’s good, but it’s not fun to read. It’s definitely more academic than anything else. I only dug back into it because I remembered the relationship between poetry and walking and I wanted to share that with you. I mean, you can read it if you want to, but it’s not on my recommended list. And neither is today’s book of the week.

Today’s book of the week is perhaps embarrassingly the next book in the Anita Blake series. I’m so sorry, you guys. The last one, I just couldn’t get over how fun it was and so I spent this week reading the next book in the series. It was kind of terrible. I don’t know. I don’t want you to read it. And I don’t want to recommend it to you because it was upsetting and not great. The plot was not focused and the characters just kind of stood around, and things happened and it was weird.

I don’t know, I don’t have anything logical or useful to say about it other than the book is called Burnt Offerings by Laurell K Hamilton. It once again features the protagonist Anita Blake. Vampire executioner/necromancer/other things. Don’t read this book. It’s kind of just more of the same. I promise I will not let you down again. I will read a better book for next week and talk to you about it. But sometimes when I have a rough week at work or when I am just really needing to escape reality, I will dive into some delightfully pulpy genre literature, and just let it take me away for awhile. That’s what I did this week. So it’s kind of like a sorry, not sorry kind of situation. Next time I’ll read something with more dinosaurs and lasers in it. But yeah, Anita Blake, delightful sociopath. And yeah, I had a hard week at work this week.

This podcast is about finding a work-life writing balance. I did not find that balance this week. It was 50% work and 70% life and 0% writing. I know that adds up to 120%, which is right now what I feel I gave this week, and it’s not good. I have been giving a lot of talks lately. I’ve been doing some more public speaking, which I absolutely love. If you haven’t guessed from listening to my podcast, I love to talk. And I love to share my experiences with people in, hopefully, a way that helps them learn and grow and become more awesome. But I’m an introvert. You guys, I’m an introvert. That’s not to say I don’t love talking to people, because obviously I do. But those of you who are introverts realize that, yes, while we may enjoy interacting with other people, I love giving hugs, I love talking with my coworkers, I love being in front of a crowd, at the end of the day, you need to recharge by yourself, alone. I haven’t had the chance to do that in a very long time.

I also haven’t had a chance to write creatively in a very long time. My problem is I can’t say no to anybody. If someone wants me to do something, I’m like, “Oh yeah, I’ll be there. I’ll be there early. I’ll be there helping you move or helping you get your car towed.” If you ask anything of me, I will be happy to do it. And that is because I love to help people. It’s part of who I am and there’s just no denying that person. I think I’ve said this before, but part of the reason I started a podcast was of purely selfish reasons. I wanted to explore, externally, because I’m an external processor, what it means to have work, life and writing balance. And so whether this is for good or for bad, I want you to know that I have not figured that out for myself yet. Despite the advice I give and despite the things I say, I’m still working on it too.

So I had a weak moment this week in which I said yes to too many things that weren’t writing. And I said yes to too many things that weren’t really a priority to me. Maybe you struggle with this too, but when I don’t write, when I don’t have my introvert recharge time, I get a little cranky. And by a little cranky, I mean I turn into a rage monster. I’m smiling right now as I tell you that, but seriously, rage monster. And I start doubting my place in life. When I lose focus on the things that are truly important to me, I lose myself. I don’t want this to happen to you. This is part of why I’m doing this podcast. I want you to write. I want you to make writing a priority in your life. Despite your work schedule, despite your crazy event-filled life, make time to write. Do not become a rage monster like me. Find fulfillment in your own talent and write every day.

I want to thank several people for today’s episode. At this point, this list might start to sound familiar to you if you are a regular listener. I want to thank Peder Aadahl, Rohn Gibson, Harrison Werner, my brother, Rebecca Werner, one of my sisters, Tim Krause, my husband, the entire crew at Click Rain, Melissa Johnson, my writing mentor, Carissa Schoffelman, Julie Hoyer, and countless others for doing their very best to help me stay sane and non-rageful during this time. You guys are awesome. I also want to thank you for listening. You are also awesome. You are the reason that I’m doing this. If this podcast at all helps you to follow your passion and to write, then I am a happy clam. I am doing my job, doing what I want to be doing.

If you have any questions, if you have any experiences that you’d like me to share on the air, go ahead and visit sarahwerner.com, S-A-R-A-H-W-E-R-N-E-R dot com. Go to the contact page, fill it out. It’s super simple. Write your thoughts, I’d like to hear them. Alternately, if you want to use email, you can simply do that. Email hello at sarahwerner dot com. If you want, you can include your name. I’d appreciate that so I can give you credit on the air. Finally, I do run this podcast on my own time and my own dime, amidst all the other wonderful things that life has to offer. If you would like to help support my work, you can find a link within today’s show notes that says, “Help support this podcast.” That link will take you to patreon.com, which is a safe and secure donation platform for supporting artists who are trying to balance their art among work and life, and all the other demands that come along with that.

Thank you for listening today. Remember, energy begets energy. Not in a new age-y way, but in a way that will help you write, and help you find clarification and the inspirational breakthroughs you need to help make your writing successful.

This has been the Write Now podcast, the podcast that helps aspiring writers to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I am Sarah Werner and you are amazing.

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