The sun is shining and I've had a good night's rest. Amazing how your physical condition can affect your mood. I know when I walk daily and get plenty of rest I perform better. Winter tends to rob me of those two things, well this winter in particular. The baby only woke once and that was around four. Not too bad. I even got back to bed after dropping my big boy down at the train station. Constant rain robs me of the ability to walk whenever I feel like it, too. Not that it's raining today. There's always something to do while the baby sleeps these days. I do need to get back into the habit of walking, though.

Walking as a writer is different. I used to walk for my health, and found it difficult to motivate myself to get out there and do it. I read another of Julia Cameron's books and changed my focus. For the most part the book had lots of silly nonsense in it. That's my opinion. I don't recall the title, and don't want to stop just to find out. But she did say to walk daily as part of the creative process. Once I changed to creativity as a motive for walking I suddenly found ways to fit it into my day. I used the time to ponder issues raised in my fiction, to let my mind wander, to mull over problems I couldn't resolve. I miss that. Perhaps it's time to give myself another pep talk and get out there for my creativity's sake and stop focusing on my health.

Not that there's anything wrong with improving my health. Being healthy can only make you better at whatever you do. I suppose we each need to learn the ways our own minds work. If I need to resort to little tricks, that's okay with me. If walking around the big long block past the high school will make me a better writer, then I'm all for it. Any other benefit is just a bonus.

One day in particular I walked by one single red poppy growing in a crack in the footpath. I plucked it and continued walking. I didn't let my mind run down the track of logic, though. That would be too easy. It was clear the flower grew from a wandering seed. It just struck me as significant as I could see no other poppies in any of the gardens I passed. I had been thinking on an idea from Julia Cameron's The Right to Write, which has less nonsense than some of her other books. I had just done one of the exercises and wondered how I could use it to form a story. I held the red poppy gently in my fingertips and let my mind roll.

Suddenly an image of the flower as a dress came to me and the entire story clicked into place. I had characters, the problem to resolve and motive, all from the walking and one flower. Once home I jotted down my thoughts on an index card. It sat there for a few weeks until a call came for short stories for a competition. I wrote the tale up as a 5000 word short story. I'd love to say I won the comp, but I didn't. I do know the story worked, though, because of input from other writers in workshops, etc. I'm still seeking a market for that one, not that I've done much about sending work out just lately.

The point is the walking helped me in that case and many more. It's just I recall that one time clearly. The only problem I had with going for a walk was getting permission to go alone. Once I'd pull on my shoes the kids wanted to come and even hubby would feel suddenly motivated. I love my family and it's hard to say no to them, especially when it makes me look unreasonable. I had to establish some rules. I don't mind walking, but we're not to speak. Can you all handle that? The kids found it too difficult, but I encouraged them to walk ahead. Hubby didn't mind at all, though. While I was pregnant with my littlest we'd often go for long rambling walks in complete but companionable silence.

For this reason I'd love to live in the country. I could handle walking through bush tracks and breathing in the eucalyptus scent of the air. Walking around a suburb of houses and streets can be uninspiring. I had to play little games with my mind to make me feel I was in fact walking somewhere else. I'd need to look for just one colour or focus on certain flowers in gardens. I did anything I could to make the places I walked fresh to my mind. But there's also something about doing those mindless actions, like showering, driving, cooking, that sends me off somewhere. It's a place where my mind has permission to create. I don't need to think on what I'm doing. I can work automatically and my creative mind can roam and create. Anyway, that's more than ten minutes. I simply lost track of time.