I’m in love with cold and wild water swimming. It’s an essential practice in my life. The ocean and the river. All seasons, although I love autumn and winter most. My preferred water temperature is somewhere between 8 and 15 degrees.
The wild and cold water swimming movement has exploded in the last few years. Even Nick Cave is a swimmer. He wrote so wonderfully about his love-affair with it recently in the Red Hand Files.
It’s almost three years ago I began swimming in the Birrarung (Yarra) River. It was August 2021, at the beginning of that last horrific 77-day lockdown.
The temperature was eight degrees, the shock of the cold immense. After eight minutes breast-stroking my way through the silky brown water, I alighted tingling from head to toe, my body and brain radically rewired. I was hooked, an instant addict.
At home, after a hot shower, my day was brighter, my writing better, bolder, braver. River swimming got me through heart-break and isolation and it fueled the first draft of Brave Women Write to produce 60,000 words in 90 days.
For me, swimming and writing are a powerful combination.
Now, cold water swimming may not be your schtick. That’s ok. Guaranteed, there’s another practice to fuel your writing. Walking. Meditating. Dancing. Singing. Drumming. I urge you to find it, if you haven’t already.
For writers can’t just write. We need something else to complement our practice. We must stoke the bonfire of our words with some other crazy, courageous and creative fuel.
And hey, maybe, just maybe, cold water swimming might be that fuel? Why not give it a go?
We’ll be discussing these ideas at the Brave Women Writers’ Dinners held each month in Melbourne. I’d love to hear how you fuel your writing. Send me a note.
With love
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Join the next Brave Women Writers’ Circle
Are you a woman who yearns to share your story with the world? Do you often suppress your inner voice and wait for that perfect day to write? Or perhaps you’ve begun writing and are feeling stuck? If so, the Brave Women Writers’ Circle is the right place for you.
Carolyn Tate is an experienced author and educator and is the facilitator of the Brave Women Writers’ Circle. The 12-week course guides you to bring your writing project to life while connecting you to a courageous community of other women writers.
