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Writing Resilient Today

February 10, 2026 | By Women Writers Women Books | Reply More

by Christine Walker

This morning at our small town’s outdoor swimming pool here in Northern California, I think about resiliency. Last night’s mid-January temperature dropped into the 30s; at 9:00 AM, it’s 42 degrees. I arrive wearing a black terry cloth robe and fleece pants, which I pile on a chair with my towel, and shiver in my swim suit and bare feet as I cross the frigid, damp cement. I descend the ladder into deep water that should be a tolerable 81.5 degrees, but the heater has malfunctioned.

I brace for the cold, gasp, and push away from the wall toward the shallows to take my place among the twenty or so women and two men standing in a loose grid arrangement in water up to their armpits. At first, I’m aware mostly of my discomfort, then forget about it as we jog in place, generating our own heat, while the instructor attaches her phone to a speaker that blasts her soundtrack high from the lifeguard chair. She enters the pool and leads vigorous exercises to the consistent, upbeat tempo of tunes mimicking the Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, and Paul Simon, but recorded by soundalikes for use in aerobics classes. We move against that rhythm for 50 minutes.

For the past three decades, I’ve been in the habit of attending aqua aerobics two or three times a week, but I sprained my right wrist a few days before Christmas, and didn’t want to tempt re-injury. I used to come to the pool on my own, but my husband began accompanying me six years ago, soon after our son died in early January of 2020. I think about being in the cold water then and going through the movements. I think about how resilient the body is, able to warm itself in minutes with its own actions, able to carry on when broken by grief. Both rest and motion help in healing.

Following the sprain and x-rays, I stabilized my wrist in a brace as the doctor advised, and, in order to avoid having to go to therapy, moved my fingers, tentatively at first, playing air piano, and then constantly, more aggressively, squeezing an imaginary ball with my whole hand. I practiced this self-imposed treatment for a month and, finally this morning, I could brush my teeth with all the intricate wrist actions that dental hygiene involves.

After our son died that January, days passed when I lay on the couch for hours, barely able to breathe against the weight of sorrow. My life was irrevocably changed. In March, the coronavirus halted most all social activities and changed normal life for everyone. Eventually, I ventured out to an art opening or to a writers’ networking group, but I couldn’t show up as the person I had once been. I needed to invent new ways to be in the world among friends and strangers. At times, I found that task to be difficult or impossible; at times, I pretended; at other times, I found a way.

What does any of this have to do with writing?

When I was invited to pen a guest post some months ago and promised to deliver it in the New Year, I didn’t have this article in mind. Had I not procrastinated due to valid excuses—a writing craft book manuscript to complete, the holidays, wrist injury, extension of the manuscript due date—I would have taken this article in a humorous or inspirational direction, focusing on resolutions for 2026, or a scholarly direction, pulling from my literary annotations or course curricula on fiction writing. I had not intended to mention my son, although he is always in my thoughts, his name always on the tip of my tongue. Quinn.

After he died, I couldn’t enter the novel that I’d been writing for many years—Tap Dancing at the Bluebird—because he had no presence in that story, which begins in 1932, nor was he in my current life. I was bereft. Then one morning in May, I realized that I could revise the novel to include a character inspired by him. I changed the name of my tap-dancing, roving-youth character Joe Wood to Kip Kelly and gave Kip what I call “Quinnessence.” Kip is not Quinn, but moves with his kinetic energy, carries his empathy, and conveys qualities of his humor and intelligence. I am gratified that this novel, infused with Quinn’s spirit, leapt into the world a year ago and is making its way on its own, reaching readers.

Because I was thinking about resiliency this morning and want to submit this article this afternoon, I leave you with these thoughts:

Resilience is the ability to spring back into shape, to return to original shape after being stretched or compressed, or to recover readily from misfortune. Resilience is found through motion. It derives from the Latin resilire—to leap back.

I prefer to move forward. We need not be done with our sorrows before moving on nor leave them all behind us. We carry whatever grief we can bear, along with the joys, until we’re faced with carrying more.

How useful is any of this for writers? How does it relate to creative practice?

It has to do with timing and rhythm, trying and doing, resting and waiting, undoing and redoing. We set a steady tempo of productivity. Bam! We get waylaid. Ouch! We proceed in fits and starts. Yippee! We have success. Yikes! We suffer and worry. Wow! We consider our misfortune and good fortune. (Sound of quiet contemplation.) We share it. Thank You!

My apologies to an editor friend who considers exclamation marks to be lazy. I’m not so much lazy as in a rush to finish this post. I hope that something I’ve said here might speak to you, sooner than later, perhaps at the moment you read this, about your writing practice or other concerns.

Here, in Northern California, the sun is shining, it’s 64 degrees, and a few hours remain on this Sunday to work on the writing craft book manuscript due soon. Onward!

—

Christine Walker is a visual artist and author of Tap Dancing at the Bluebird: A Novel, A Writer’s Resolution: A Guided Journal for Realizing a Rewarding Writing Practice, A Painter’s Garden: Cultivating the Creative Life, and co-author/illustrator of Wooleycat’s Musical Theater children’s book and songs. She is an exhibiting painter, strategic visioning consultant, and writing teacher. Her book Our Writing Minds in Play: The Nine Ways Approach to Masterful Fiction and Memoir will be published in 2027 by Sibyl Writing Craft. Christine has an MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington College Writing Seminars, an MA in Creative Arts Interdisciplinary from San Francisco State University, and a BFA from the University of Kansas. She lives in Sonoma County, California.

WEBSITE: https://christinewalkerauthor.com/

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Tap Dancing at the Bluebird: A Novel

Two young dancers share this coming-of-age story as they tap dance for change and ride the rails during the Great Depression.

But Mattie and Kip lose each other for a lifetime when they become separated after a betrayal and a train crash. They each live a full life as a dancer. Now at 99, Mattie, at long last, talks to her granddaughter about this different era, remembering how a light-footed roving youth taught her to tap and set her life in motion. With rhythms of tap, modern, and social dancing, the novel’s cadence draws readers through a century of cultural and political change in America, while the reader is left to wonder if our two dancers will ever see each other again. The story turns upon the Is there still time, in this lifetime, to love and forgive?

A Writer’s Resolution: A Guided Journal for Realizing a Rewarding Writing Practice

A Writer’s Resolution is designed to help you dream, declare, and realize your intentions as a writer, wherever you are on your writing journey. Each year as writers, we recalibrate. We set goals for what we will start, what we will finish, and how we will usher our work into the world. Committing intentions to paper is a powerful way to strengthen resolve, gain insight for creativity, and keep focus as they manifest in reality.