Walking with… The Writer’s Walk

A reintroduction and a bit about the philosophy behind my newsletter

Pausing at the poetry bench on The Hudson Way, East Yorkshire

Hello walkers and writers 👋🏻

And hello to everyone who subscribed recently. I think many of you found your way here thanks to Rob Walker who writes the brilliant Art of Noticing Substack – and who shared one of my workshop icebreakers in his recent newsletter. I’m also a big fan of his book and really recommend it if you haven’t dipped into it yet.

As there are so many new people here, and because I’ve been thinking about this for a while, I want to share a little bit about the things that influenced my decision to start a newsletter that pairs walking with writing, and some of the things I believe in that informs a lot about who I am and what makes me tick. So this edition is slightly different from the usual ones where I pair a writing prompt with a walking theme – although there’s a prompt at the end, as always.

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Walking my way into a newsletter

When I launched The Writer’s Walk in May 2022 I did it for two reasons.

Firstly, to rediscover my own voice – both in writing and in real life. As a commercial writer, working with brands both little and large, I’m a ghost. Working quietly behind the scenes, I’ve put words into the hands – and mouths – of many people and brands. But they’re always their words and always in their voice. And I think that’s how it should be. A tech, finance, charity, retail or outdoor brand shouldn’t sound like me. And I shouldn’t sound like them either.

But it also meant that I gradually wrote more for – and as – other people than I did for myself. I was putting all my thinking power and creative energy into service for others. I wanted to write as me again, so I thought a lot about what I wanted to say. I considered putting out a newsletter about brand writing and tone of voice, but I felt, and still do, that there are heaps of talented copywriters who already do that. I didn’t feel as if I had anything different to add to that conversation and realised I needed to find something else to write about. Something that felt more personal, more me. Something that I thought about a lot and not only had opinions on, but was interested in enough to explore further to see what else I might discover. Because, as countless famous writers have said, I write to figure out what I think.

Capturing the ideas before they get away

So the second reason for starting The Writer’s Walk was to explore, and to a certain extent interrogate, my relationship with walking. And it’s been a funny one, because I’m not what you might consider to be a natural hiker. I was born with club feet, and temperamental achilles tendons, and spent the best part of my childhood limping in pain. Shoes were always too heavy and socks felt like they’d give me blisters. Clearly, a life on the trails was not for me.

But my feet gradually got stronger, the pain disappeared, and by the time I was in my mid-twenties walking was something I took for granted. Sure, I enjoyed a country stroll or coastal ramble as much as anyone, but I never thought walking defined me until the pandemic when we were limited to 30-minutes of outdoor exercise a day. Having my ability to walk cut back like that helped me realise how important it was to me and that it was more than a way of getting from A to B – it linked to so many areas of my life. Walking helped keep me fit, calm my mind and feed my soul. And, importantly for me both professionally and personally, to spark my writing.

I realised that the walks to client offices helped me mentally prepare for meetings and the walks back helped me plan the writing I’d do for them. A walk in my local park could calm my mind if I was feeling anxious or stressed. A walk around the block could help me if I was feeling stuck with my writing. And whatever type of walk I was doing, I’d find myself reflecting on life, the world and what it all means, and the ideas would flood in.

One of my favourite walks between Keld and Muker in Swaledale, North Yorkshire

So I decided to lean into it and see if I could test it. Instead of taking a walk and hoping an idea would appear out of nowhere, I asked myself what would happen if I focused my attention on something while I walked. Could I ‘encourage’ the creativity to happen? How far would I need to walk before it happened? And did things like the weather, my mood, my pace, the terrain or time of day make a difference? And I found that they did and wondered if anyone else might find the same. I then spent absolutely ages thinking about how to share what I was learning with others before settling on the format I have now, where I share an approach to taking a walk – our theme – and pair it with a simple writing prompt. The themes span a range of topics, from walking alone, with others or with a dog, to discovering new places or rediscovering ones you know well.

The Writer’s Walk has connected me with many people who have a love of walking, writing or a mix of both. Many of you have shared your walking and writing experiences by commenting on these posts or messaging me directly – which I always look forward to getting. And I’ve been able to share other people’s walking and writing stories through the Q&A interview series – and I’m hugely grateful for how generous people are with both their time and the stories they trust me with.

Tholos of Delphi temple, Greece

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The Writer’s Warmth

Over the last few years many people have asked me about the central ideas behind The Writer’s Walk. And I’ve taken a lot of time to think about them because it’s hard to apply a critical lens to an endeavour that’s so personal. What was I offering to other people with this? Was there some kind of principle, value or ‘writer’s code’ at play? So I thought a lot about when I co-owned and ran a scuba diving school in the Caribbean. Our dive shop was small, but we had 3 simple principles (dare I say ‘values’) that steered everything:

• Fun

• Safety

• Environment

These principles were a solid foundation for a dive shop. For any new service we tried, it had to encompass all of them. If something satisfied just one principle it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t fun if it also damaged the marine environment. It wasn’t enough to be just mindful of the environment if it wasn’t also safe.

Now that I offer in-person ‘walkshops’ in addition to the writing, storytelling and tone of voice workshops I facilitate for my brand clients, I’ve revisited those principles. Do I still believe in them, or has my thinking shifted? The answer is that I do still believe in them, and they’re often there in the back of my mind, but they don’t quite fit with what I’m creating with The Writer’s Walk. They’ve evolved, somewhat.

I also don’t like the idea of calling them values or principles. So many brands talk about values, but many don’t really live them. Or at least, not all of them. So I started to form a new approach and rather than call them values or principles, I realised the word that came up again and again for me was philosophy.

So here it is. The Writer’s Walk philosophy in its current shape and form. I say current, because I believe the point of having a philosophy – from the Greek words philo (love) and sophia (knowledge, wisdom) – is having the wisdom to continually test, question and evolve it.

The Writer’s Warmth

Measure your walks in moments, not miles

Leave things better than you find them

Celebrate people and place

Walk with warmth

I could share a bit more detail for each point, but for now I’m going to keep it short and simple, as I think these four lines sum things up nicely. Perhaps something here resonates with you, if so please let me know.

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Writing

Thanks for reading along with me this far. At the start of this edition, I promised you a writing prompt, so this time I invite you to reflect on your own walking or writing experience. Do you have a personal approach or philosophy? If you could choose 3 words to describe how you feel about walking, what would they be? And what 3 words would you choose to describe how writing makes you feel?

As always, I welcome your thoughts and love hearing about your walks and writing. So please feel free to share something with me and our readers by leaving a comment.

Happy walking and writing until next time.

Sarah

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More from The Writer’s Walk

If you enjoyed this edition, check out the first one I shared, Walking to write.

Walking to write