Thursday Seeds | Prose to the Hike

What are you doing when you go on a Hike?

Sure, your feet are moving. What else? Are you talking to a hiking friend? If you are, you aren’t on steep enough hill. You both should be winded enough that it takes effort to speak. When that’s the case, there is a moment to just be with the outdoors, with your breath, and working with a rhythm that could be disguised with another task.

If you are listening to someone else’s story, then you are doing another thing. If you are hiking alone, then maybe your are working on your own story. You could be going back through the details of a story that you had just seen. Or you could be doing back through family interactions. (We did just have a Father’s Day weekend.) There are always stories to tell when we get together with family, good and/or bad. 

You could also be working on your own story. What you want to do next, the places you want to set your camera for a snap session, or the skies and smells of soil that you need to check on. There are some places that you might go to hike, make a “wrong” turn and end up with the fairies. (See the video at the end of the post.) But when I go to hike, there is usually a conversation. It might be with characters that need their story to go in a specific direction, or it could also be a story director (also a character but different story) who needs the story structure items to shift slightly. It’s always good to have a phone with you so that you can call someone but also to jot these kinds of notes down when they come to you.

These are the times that can make your story bigger, better, brighter than it would be if your feet weren’t moving. Sure, you can hike with friends, but if you are a writer, be sure you have other times when you are hiking alone so these characters get a minute to have their say. Sometimes the stuff they come up with is pure madness! Good madness that makes an awesome story that much better.

Don’t know what happens next in the story? Talk to your characters. If you get them out on a trail, they might just talk your ear off. Which then means you need to LISTEN to your characters. All those story beats that you weren’t sure of? They can solidify in one hike! A passerby might wonder of your sanity, so please where earbuds so it looks like you are on the phone! 

Why do the cats in your life have to have those “zoomie” moments? The ones where they run past you and around the house in circles. It’s because they haven’t gotten a good hike in and they know how much they need it. It’s instinctual.  Sure, it might be about the constipated litter box time, but even in that, they know that walking or running is the way to take care of those things. The faster you go, that stuff is gonna fall off.  Ha!

The best hair ball flare ups are done outside on the patio, not inside on a rug.

And the prose… it really does have to come out. And if you add a hike, it gets rid of that kind of constipation too.

Fairy Trail