Each week we ask an author about their writing rituals.
Caroline Barron is the author of Golden Days
My fail-safe way to solve a plot or character problem is this: strap on trainers, clip the lead to Norah’s collar and start walking. It takes discipline to turn off the podcasts and audiobooks, but when I’m in the thick of writing I simply have to get out into nature and let my thoughts roam. I usually walk the kids to the bus stop and keep going around Ōrākei Basin bush track [in Auckland, New Zealand] from there — observing the herons, shags, ducks, kayakers, kahawai, walkers, runners and dogs — and by the time I’m home 45 minute later, I’m bursting to write down what I’ve come to understand about my story.
Rebecca Solnit puts it like this: “Thinking is generally thought of as doing nothing in a production-oriented society, and doing nothing is hard to do. It’s best done by disguising it as doing something, and the something closest to doing nothing is walking.”
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