Novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder (The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth) once said in an interview published in Writers at Work: The Paris Interviews, “My springboard (to writing) has always been long walks.” (103)
I find that the same thing works when I’m stuck on a writing task. Staring at a blank screen or aimlessly netsurfing won’t get me any closer to completion; however, cleaning out my head with a spirited walk has done the trick in getting me back on the job. As a bonus, I’ve made discoveries along my walking path that might show up in my next piece: a toddler enjoying the sensation of walking backwards, a weary postal worker climbing the few steps of her two hundredth house that morning, or the first spotting of spring of a cardinal in flight.
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