7 ways that walking the dog makes me a better writer

Now that my teens have returned to school and my husband and I are settled into our working routines, my morning dog walks have fallen back into place.

As soon as I get home after ferrying my teens to school, the dog takes her usual stance in the hallway ready to be fitted out for her daily adventure.

I have to admit that faced with a grey, rainy morning, the prospect of donning the wellies and baring my face to the elements rarely appeals, but once I'm out there it's a different matter. I enjoy the time with my (mostly) silent companion, pootling along muddy paths.

Want to know why our time together makes me a better writer? Well, I'll tell you.

1. Physical health

Life as a home-based worker can be sedentary to the extreme. Add to that the fact that I work on a computer and there's a recipe for piling on the pounds.

I'm not old, but I do fall into the 'middle aged' category, so not everything works as well as it used to. I need to work harder to stay fit but I don't really enjoy exercise for the sake of it. I do envy my runner friends with their enthusiastic outings but it's not for me.

My morning brisk walk with the pooch, arms swinging (well, one arm, the other is holding the dog lead), wellies striding, and glasses on occasion steaming up, is exercise I can do without really feeling that I'm exercising. It gets my heart pumping, my lungs moving, and does a fine job at toning my legs. I just need to find a way to tone my body from the legs up now.

For more on this subject, read The Healthy Writer by Joanna Penn.

2. Inspiration from the mundane

As a writer, I can sometimes get so close to, and wrapped up in, an idea that I lose all perspective. It becomes too immense and overwhelming.

When I use my time to carry out a relatively brain-less task, however - dusting, weeding or walking the dog - it releases my mind to mull over my creative rantings. I let go of the need to find an answer, and let the answer come to me.

Nine times out of ten, as I let my mind wander during the dog walk, the answer will pop up and I'll wonder how I didn't come to that conclusion in the first place.

3. Time out

With modern life dragging us from Facebook, to daily commutes, to texting, to a busy workplace, and back again, it can be all too easy to forget to take a moment away from it all.

There's no need to fill your hours to overbrimming. Sometimes it's ok to just be.

Take a moment away from the computer, your mobile phone, and your colleagues/family's expectations.

Stare out a window, savour your sandwich, or take the dog for a walk.

After my 'time out', I return to the house refreshed and ready to face my workload.

4. What if moments

As drivers, we are taught to be observant, but only to the point that we and the other cars/pedestrians/cyclists around us are safe.

When I walk the dog, I really observe. I see things that, when I'm driving the same route, I would never have noticed.

I see the abandoned handbag in a hedge, the half eaten Easter egg in a car park, or the footprints in the snow.

These observations get me thinking. What if you opened the handbag? What would you find? What happened to the other half of the egg? Who made the footprints?

There are always 'what if' prompts around us, if we just look.

5. Imagine without the constraints of a computer screen or a page

I love to write with a pencil and pad. The experience feels rich and real and, in drawing directly from my mind, magical even.

When I type, it's generally to get the handwritten words down and to edit. It's an altogether more ordered and disciplined mode.

The two things that both of these methods have in common is the speed at which I can pen the words or type, and the physicality of writing down or typing on a keyboard.

When I walk the dog, I can throw the words around in my head without worrying about commas or paragraphs, or even the order in which it would all be written.

I allow the words to create their own limits and form, and then I do my best to remember it all for when I return home and scribble it down.

6. Reconnect with your senses

Rushing around in our daily routine, eyes and mind on our destination, we often forget to notice what our senses are telling us.

We see the text on our phone or the email from our boss, but do we notice the colour of the flowers on the office reception desk?

We tap away at a keyboard but do we savour the touch of the soft scarf we wrap around our neck as we head out the door.

Lunch is raced through, food tipped down our throat and coffee supped in a hurry. We don't enjoy the taste of what passes our lips. It becomes simply fuel.

We cough at the exhaust fumes of a passing car, wrinkling our nose, but we don't allow ourselves to enjoy the perfume of a passing commuter or the scent of just mown grass in our neighbour's garden.

Life becomes a racing track of barely registered experiences.

Taking the time on my walk to exercise my senses, and allowing myself to become aware of what they bring me, not only informs my writing but makes me feel alive.

7. Watching clouds

Do you ever look up? Really look up?

One benefit of my morning dog walk is that I can take the time to look up at the sky. Some mornings, it's more of a sideways squint so I don't get rain in my eyes but you get the gist.

Where I live, I can easily see vast swathes of constantly changing sky, and the best part of that is watching the clouds.

On some days, they thunder around like a herd of buffalo. On others, they wait, looking back at me.

My son says that clouds don't look real. To him, they appear to be a painting. To my daughter, there are beasties and monsters up there (the good kind - nothing to be scared of).

Watching the clouds awakens the child in me who saw them as a sea of islands, and most importantly of all, inspires my story cogs into action.