Stepping Your Way to Creativity

This month I’ve been writing something new. I know I’m supposed to be revising, but I just felt like I needed a bit of a change. Besides Nanowrimo in 2023 (yes, almost two years ago), I’ve been revising for close to three years straight (though the amount of time I’ve had to dedicate to working on my books has not been a lot, especially the last year). Revising for me is very draining, and as a result of doing it for so long, lately I’ve been feeling a little burnt out. I thought starting something new might help me get those creative juices flowing again.

I have a few stories that have been pestering me for a while to be written, so I decided to jump into one of them and see how it goes. But since I haven’t written in a while, it’s been a little slow. Not bad exactly, but more rusty. Kind of like when you haven’t skated in a while, and it takes you a little bit to figure out where everything should go and how to get all your movements to sync up at once. I’m working on it. Little by little. But it has meant a lot more moments of feeling stuck or unsure than I normally have during a first draft.

And when I feel like I’m stuck, I know I have to do something else for a little while. Other people might be different, but for me, no amount of staring at a screen will fix my head not being in the right place. Since I’m also trying to be more active, when I’m stuck, I’ve been getting up and going for a walk. Figuring if the writing is working for me, I might as well work on my step goal. Even if it’s just a walk around my office.

While I’m walking, my mind can wander. It gives me the same feeling as when you take a long drive down the highway. You can kind of zone out, your body knowing what to do on muscle memory, and your mind can drift. On these walks I usually start making new connections. Come up with some idea I hadn’t thought of before, or some character detail that hadn’t occurred to me before, and soon I’m unstuck. Or at least I will be unstuck in some place in the novel, and I can work on that part instead (I’m an inspiration writer, meaning I write whatever scene is inspiring me at the moment, and don’t often write the story chronologically).

When I noticed how often this has been happened to me lately, I realized this isn’t a new phenomenon. Any time when I was walking routinely was also my most productive. When I was writing the Frostbite Falls series, I would take a walk during my lunch break at the evil day job, before finding a grassy place to sit and do some writing. And that was my most productive writing year ever. Writing, revising and publishing six books, and writing two others that were published later.

I wondered if it was just me, or if other people had the same experience. So out of curiosity I did some research. And it appears I am not alone. A Stanford study showed that walking improved people’s creativity by up to 60% either during or after a walk. It doesn’t matter where you walked, on the treadmill, around the house, or outdoors. As long as you get your body moving and the blood flowing, you can boost your creativity by simply taking a stroll.

And even if a walk doesn’t end up giving me a new creative idea, I’ve moved my body, probably gotten a little healthier, and—besides time—it costs me nothing. Which is exactly the kind of hack I love. One with no downside.

Now that I know this, I’m trying to focus my walks to right before I start writing. To get the creative juices flowing, and get myself into the right headspace before writing. And it has help me come up with some great ideas, and even better questions. But more than anything, it gives me the time and space to focus my thinking on writing before I sit down. That kind of focus is hard to come by in my life right now.

Only time will tell if this trick leads to a year of productivity that can rival my previous personal best, but I’m certainly happy to give it a try. And even if I don’t have a record-breaking year, I’m sure to have a good time either way.

So if you’re ever struggling creatively, and just can’t figure out what to do, or how to get to the next scene. Take a walk, and let those creative juices flow. And you might just find yourself stepping toward an exciting new idea.