Muse Chasers Walk Across Kansas

My writing gang is growing and taking on new challenges. This month, six of us have banded together to form Muse Chasers, a team for Walk Kansas, a K-State Research and Extension Health Initiative. We mostly walk on our own, but have added a short walk together (for as many as can make it -- me, that's about half the time) prior to our usual Monday meeting write-in routine. Last Saturday--that's two Saturdays now as it has taken me just that long to get from draft to publish--three of us started the day at the Tallgrass Preserve for a little hiking.

Writing is often thought of as a solitary activity, and much of the time I suppose that is the case. Maybe writers don't suffer from loneliness because there is simply so much going on all the time inside their heads. For me, walking has often been the first step to very satisfying writing. A really good walk, in fact, often ends in hours and hours of time at the keyboard. This happened the day we hiked at Tallgrass--hours and hours... though nothing was completed because the current work-in-progress has several weekends of hiking/writing to go. In a perfect world, when the fingertips slow, the body goes on a walk again to refuel.

I have learned that walking with other writers is fun, too. When one shares a story, the others are often quick to point out that it's one that should be written down. And writers never seem to tire of talking about books... those we've read, and those we would like to read, as well as those we'd like to see written so that we can read them, and those we'd like to write just because...

How many muses have been caught? It's hard to tell. For each one I catch hold of, there's another one or two that manage to evade my grasp. Our team has made it about 3/4 the way across the state with 4 weeks left to go. Seems like pretty good progress for a group so easily distracted by the sparklies we pick up (both real and imagined) along the trail...

Hazel, Michelle and I hit the trail at Tallgrass Preserve. What do writers talk about as they hike? Books, of course.