Why walking may be the best writing tool you’re not using.
by Suzanne Lieurance
You’ve been staring at the same paragraph for twenty minutes.
You’ve rewritten the opening three times. The dialogue feels flat. The ending won’t come together.
So you do what most writers do. You stay in your chair, reread the paragraph, and tell yourself that if you just think a little harder, the answer will come.
Ironically, that’s often the very thing preventing the breakthrough.
If you’ve ever stepped away from your desk, gone for a walk, and suddenly known exactly how to solve the problem, you know what I’m talking about.
It feels almost magical.
But it isn’t magic.
Sometimes the fastest way to move your writing forward isn’t to keep staring at the page. It’s to walk away from it.
Can Walking Really Improve Creativity?
Surprisingly, yes.
In a landmark 2014 study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, Stanford researchers Marily Oppezzo and Daniel Schwartz found that participants generated significantly more creative ideas while walking than while sitting, and the creative boost often continued after the walk ended.
For writers, that’s encouraging news. A simple ten-minute walk can help your mind see possibilities it couldn’t see while sitting at your desk.
Why Walking Works
When you’re stuck, your brain often shifts into evaluation mode. You begin judging every sentence before you’ve finished writing it. Walking interrupts that cycle. As you move, your attention softens and your brain begins making unexpected connections between ideas. Walking doesn’t make you think harder—it helps you think differently.
Writers Have Been Walking Their Way Through Problems for Centuries
Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, and William Wordsworth all built walking into their creative lives. They weren’t avoiding their work—they were doing part of it. Modern research confirms what these writers discovered through experience: movement often creates the mental space that sitting still cannot.
Try This Today
Before you leave your desk, write down one question about your manuscript. Then take a ten- to fifteen-minute walk without trying to force an answer. Simply let the question travel with you. Many writers discover that fresh ideas arrive when they stop chasing them.
Creating the Conditions for Flow
Walking won’t write your novel. But it helps remove resistance from the writing process. Together with other simple practices—rest, breathing, good posture, and intention—it creates the conditions where flow is much more likely to happen.
That’s exactly what we’re exploring throughout this month’s Writing in Flow theme.
Writing in flow isn’t something you wait for. It’s something you prepare for.
Continue Exploring Writing in Flow
This article is part of this month’s Writing in Flow series.
Start with the Theme Hub here.
Then continue with:
• The Blank Page isn’t the Problem. This is.
• Decision Fatigue is Quietly Stealing Your Flow
• Why Perfectionism Kills Flow Before It Starts
Your Next Step
If this article sparked something in you, don’t let it stop here.
Reading about writing in flow is a wonderful beginning. Lasting change happens when you consistently practice what you’ve learned.
Your next step is to explore this month’s Writing in Flow challenge, where you’ll discover additional articles and practical ways to create the conditions for your best writing.
Once you’ve explored the challenge, continue with this month’s issue of Manifesting Monthly. Each issue expands on the monthly theme with guided journaling, reflection questions, and practical exercises designed to help you apply these ideas to your own writing life.
If you’re looking for encouragement, accountability, and a supportive community, I’d love to welcome you to Monday Morning Manifestors. Each week we work through the monthly theme together, set intentions, celebrate progress, and help one another become writers who consistently show up, write with confidence, and finish what they start.
Because understanding the ideas is only the beginning.
Your writing life changes when you begin living them.
References
Oppezzo, M., & Schwartz, D. L. (2014). Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40(4), 1142–1152. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036577
Suzanne Lieurance is the author of over 40 published books and a transformational Law of Attraction coach for writers who are ready to stop waiting to feel like the real thing. At Write by the Sea, she guides writers through the identity shift that changes everything — not just the writing, but the whole life built around it. She is the publisher of Manifesting Monthly magazine and the host of Monday Morning Manifestors.
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