On Wordy Walks

I’ve been trying to find more time for my writing.

Being a full-time freelancer means I have to prioritise work that pays the bills – teaching, project management, commissions and performances. The actual WRITING of the poems often gets pushed to the bottom of the list.

But, writing poems is my favourite part of what I do, so I’ve been trying to re-prioritise it over the last few weeks. 

Last month, I conducted an experiment. 

I was going on a walk anyway. I love a nice, long walk, and I LOVE an urban walk too. 

Most people I talk to prefer a walk in the woods, or in the Peaks or on the beach – and don’t get me wrong, I love those kinds of walks too – but my inherent nosiness is always delighted to go poke around in the city. 

If I’m going into Nottingham, and I don’t have a time limit, I like to walk the four miles from my house to the city centre. Walking is my favourite self-soothing activity, and the only sport I’m really, truly great at!

So, this random Wednesday, I planned a circuitous route and threw my notebook into my backpack, tuned my headphones to “writing music” and laced up my boots. 

I walked for about half an hour before I found my first spot: a suburban park with a very comfortable bench opposite some impressively huge trees. 

I set a timer for twenty minutes and wrote about tree tops, distance and perspective. And I was startled by how my surroundings influenced what I wrote, but also allowed me space to find the metaphor that worked best with my current preoccupations too. 


After another twenty minutes of walking, I found myself in one of my favourite graveyards. (Yes, I have a favourite grave yard – don’t you?) It’s a big, overgrown Victorian one, and all the graves are perched higgledy-piggledy on the side of a pretty steep hill. 

I sat beside the war memorial and wrote about church bells, childhood and the loss of innocence. This time, my writing didn’t have anything to do with the place I found myself in. 

But the pen goes where it wants, as you well know. 


Then, I acquired some lunch in the North East of the city, on a picnic bench outside one of my favourite trendy cafes, in an area that used to be a fruit and veg market, but is now filled with cool independent shops. 

There were loads of people outside enjoying overpriced coffee and unseasonably warm weather, and I found myself drawn to writing about climate change. It was another case of the environment providing the catalyst, and my brain going off on a massive tangent. 


Finally, I trotted up towards the train station, and stopped off at Nottingham Contemporary, which is my favourite art gallery in Nottingham. I had intended to do some writing while looking around the exhibitions, but I was so floored by the pieces on display (particularly Prisoners of Love: Until the Sun of Freedom by Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme) that I didn’t get a chance. 

You should definitely go see this exhibition, if you get the chance. It’s incredible. And it’s free. And it’s on until Sunday 11th January. 


By the end of the day, I was super sleepy and ready to call it a day. But, in six hours, I’d managed to
• Do some exploring
• Get out in the fresh air
• Get my 10,000 steps in 
• Write three new pieces of writing AND
• See a bit of art too. 

Winner, winner, chicken dinner. 

Will I be doing this again? Definitely. I think part of the appeal for me was the novelty of writing in new places, so I’ll have to change it up next time, to keep things fresh. But I really enjoyed it. And I’d definitely recommend a wordy walk, if you find yourself with a bit of writers’ block. 

Moving around between writing sessions, and finding myself in interesting locations that sparked my creativity really helped me write things I wouldn’t have written sat at home at my desk. 

If only I could use the wordy walks technique to do my tax return!  

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