Flash Fiction Chronicles

Recently I attended a book reading by an up and coming writer in Chennai, India and I was pleasantly surprised to hear her say that going for walks triggered story ideas in her head.  I found myself nodding in agreement.Walking is great exercise, for both body and mind. What makes it even better for writers is that as you walk you unwittingly keep observing the world around you in a detached sort of way. Objects, people, stray thoughts gather momentum with every step or stride.

Your head begins to clear up and soon a kind of informal creative mood sets in. You begin to look at the world around you (and I mean really look at the the world around you) with fresh eyes. A slant of sunlight on a pathway you never noticed before, an expression on the face of a passerby you see most days but never notice, the sudden pattern of paint peeling off a fence… Before you know it, an image has become a sentence, a thought has become a phrase; one word has sparked off a whole string; your mind has come alive with sound and colour. Pretty soon you have a dialogue happening between characters that suddenly appeared between your eyes. The first lines of a poem begin to meander. A storyline erupts and starts to bubble inside your head…

Many of my stories and poems started out that way. However, unlike the noted Indian writer Ruskin Bond, I don’t carry a notepad and pen with me when I go for my walks. No longhand first drafts for me. I need my computer, always. The only exception that I can think of is the odd poem that crops up at an Airport or during a train journey. The rest of the time, I am comfortably creative when I sit before my own computer, in my own room. And no where else.

Not jotting down your thoughts the minute they arrive does have its pitfalls. I have lost a number of good sentences, phrases and ideas that way. But everything does not melt away in the sunlight of a normal working day. After my day’s chores are done (read wife and mum!) there is still enough fodder gathered during my morning walk left over in my mind to fuel the creative writing process. That apart, walking also works like a creative excercise. All those random thoughts, mostly unrelated and unregulated, produce a kind of cleansing effect. And then when the dust settles down, you get some clear directions as to where your muse is headed for the day.