If You’re Struggling to Create, You Should Ambulate
By: Robert Turner
Tags: Writers Block, Walking, Lighterside, Creativity, Writing Tips

If You’re Struggling to Create, You Should Ambulate

How walking will unlock your inner creativity

Stuck for ideas? If you’ve signed up to feeding the digital beast with data then you know the feeling. She’s a hungry taskmaster. The need to generate content on an almost continuous basis can become overwhelming. If you’re staring at a blank page or screen and that nagging little doubt monster is lurking, then it’s time to go for a walk.

Those of you who follow my disjointed verbal ramblings know by now that I am in the Philippines. Before I settled, I would walk across wide swathes of it, from village to village. Just me, my backpack and the open road. Before you send me lunch money, it was out of choice, driven by my desire to experience the country on a level no tourist package could ever provide.

Discovering the secret known only to those who walk.

It was scary at times, interesting, exciting, entertaining and immensely taxing, physically. I shed a small whale's worth of western blubber in a year. This was in most part due to a lack of beer. sweltering temperatures. walking, and an aversion to eating food that was staring back at me. I broke a finger, suffered a mild concussion, lost pints of blood to the local mosquitos, and walked my way through six pairs of shoes.

When I eventually found the place I wanted to call home, I was feeling twenty again, rather than the fifty-something laps shown on the clock.

During my hundreds and hundreds of miles covered on foot, I discovered a few things about myself, the most important, without doubt, was that I was comfortable being alone with myself. That took a while. What’s of relevance here though is that I also discovered a secret. It’s a secret known to all walkers and one which they guard jealously.

The rhythm of placing one foot in front of the other for an extended period of time is cathartic. It is liberating, illuminating, healing and so much more. It mutes the noise of the world, allowing your creative mind to escape the deafening cacophony of those mundane daily duties that can crush creativity.

If you’re going to ambulate with a view to create, it is an activity best undertaken alone and I’ll explain why, how and when you should plan your walks.

The only rule is no tech.

The only rule that applies to walking for creativity is no tech. Smartphones and their digital counterparts are the very antitheses of creativity. You can bring along your smartphone after, and only after, you’ve engaged its flight mode. There can be no interruptions. Fight the separation anxiety and rather lock it in the car or leave it on your desk.

Next, pick a route that will give you at least 30 minutes of uninterrupted walking. Don’t skimp on time, it takes a while to get those creative juices flowing. Drive away from neighborhoods, neighbors and any potential interactions, to a place you know you won’t be disturbed. Even a local sports track will do the trick. If you can’t escape people, stick in your earphones. Don’t plug them in, just use them to appear unsociable. Print a T that says “Pee Off. I’m Walking.” Wear a hoodie. Do whatever it takes to ensure your walk is going to be purely ‘you’ time.

It should take between five and ten minutes for your cognitive brain to switch off and the creative side to kick in. It’s the daydreamer you’re looking for. Find and follow those thoughts, don’t push. Let it come naturally. There is no mantra required, no affirmations or catchy phrases whilst facing the rising sun. Just walk. One foot in front of the other and the muse will find you. I guarantee it.

When she does you can be overwhelmed by the flow. You will have days when the floodgates are really lowered and it becomes too much. That is where your phone or a dictaphone can come in handy for voice notes. Ideas are the rare commodity that fuels creativity and you should absolutely never waste them or risk them being lost later to life’s drudgery.

I’m a little old fashioned and still use a small digital dictaphone. It’s light, has insane battery life and cannot tempt me to check for WiFi when I pass below a promising looking palm tree. It’s only occasionally that I find I have a need for it and as I said earlier, try for zero distractions.

You can use your walking time to explore your characters, play out plots in your mind, draft frameworks for new pieces or simply contemplate the meaning of life if you’re that way inclined. If you blog, you’re definitely going to need a recording device as the ideas come thick and fast. Don’t just think plot, think life. Walking it turns out, accesses your onboard philosopher.

I have a theory about our creativity. I see it as a bottomless pit filled with endless ideas and when creativity fails us, it is not that the pit has run dry, it is simply our extraction method that needs attention.

Walking rips that pit right open.

Some of you are going to raise the time issue. Where are you supposed to find that extra half an hour. Let me ask you this. How much unproductive time do you waste sitting in front of your keyboard, tapping your fingers and waiting for the smallest glimmer of an idea you can build on? Technology doesn’t foster creativity, it merely serves as an outlet for it. Your half an hour walk will provide you with a week's worth of ideas and your waistline will be rooting right alongside the muse for her outing.

So, if your brain tends to fancy, take it for a walk and set if free. It will soar to heights you never imagined possible and return laden with gifts from the muse above.