Writers pour so much energy into their craft that sometimes we forget that creative pursuits other than writing can fill us up in other important ways. Here, we’ll look at what writers do when they aren’t writing, and how those pursuits affect the return to the page. This month, we hear from two writers—Jennifer Braunfels and Jonathan Rose—who both find inspiration in walking, one up mountains, the other around Brooklyn.
What fills you up creatively when you’re not writing? If you’d like to contribute to the Writers on Not Writing series, email jen@mastersreview.com. We can’t wait to hear from you!
There are two types of people in this world: Those who need to be the best at everything they do—and then there’s me. As a freshman on my high school’s cross-country team, I’d sprint the first quarter of a mile. But once the course cut into the woods, I’d slow to a walk. Racing was never about winning for me; it was about savoring the beauty and quiet on the trail. I finished last in almost every meet. My coach hated it. Yet, for better or worse, I’ve carried that mindset with me into my adult life. Instead of perfecting one thing, I find pleasure in attempting a small handful of things—and actually enjoying them.
I’m still a “runner.” Every year, I participate in the Mount Desert Island and Millinocket Half-Marathons here in Maine. I’ve never placed in the top ten of either. I run when I want and walk when I need to. I’m that gal somewhere at the back of the middle of the pack, either stopping to take a goofy selfie in front of the backdrop of the beautiful mountains of Acadia or chatting with the guy in the Santa costume handing out shots of Fireball to the runners on the Golden Road around mile seven. I’m just there to accomplish something and have fun.
Besides being a “runner,” I’m also a “hiker,” often attempting big New England mountains I probably have no business climbing. Sometimes I barely train and make it to the top; other times, I’ll train for months and make it only halfway up. Most times, for me, hiking feels like torture, but still, there’s something so satisfying about attempting the climb and appreciating the views along the way. Ask any of my friends, and they will tell you the phrase “Look at those mountains!” should be engraved on my tombstone when I die because I say that every time a new view of a mountain comes into view.
The things that bring me joy remind me that not everything has to be polished. The same goes for my writing. My goal isn’t to finish every piece or perfect every draft—it’s just to get my ideas down on paper. Sometimes a first draft is just pages of random words; other times, I’ll jot down a line that’s been in my head for days, and the story takes off from there. Recently, I turned a piece I wrote about a failed relationship over a decade ago into a short memoir piece about my cancer diagnosis. The only elements I kept from the original draft were all of the transition words. Most of my final pieces often look nothing like I had originally intended. Some drafts never get finished. And that’s okay.
I don’t claim to be an expert at anything. In a world that seems obsessed with everyone being the best, I’m content to just participate in the little moments of joy and beauty that life has to offer.
Jennifer Braunfels
Not writing has been, for me, working in restaurants. I’ve done this for twenty years. I am very good at it. I’ve worked in diners and vegan cafés and dive bars and a movie theater restaurant, and an Asian fusion restaurant and a fancy cocktail date spot. This has all been to pay rent and utilities. This has barely covered rent and utilities. It’s an occupation that my dearest friends and family once treated with bemusement, “ya know, starving artist thing,” and have likely more recently graduated to: “He’s got that novel right? Is he ever gonna do anything with that?” I’ve tried to further my career as a server. I once even had a 401k and health insurance working at a bar that shilled for romance novels. One time I messed up my knee going down some stairs to get a customer a different copy of a Colleen Hoover book, while Toni Morrison’s Jazz was just sitting on the shelf, untouched. I’ve wrestled (surely more than one hundred) beer kegs into and out of basements, and I’ve waved a gnat out of a celebrity’s salad. I’ve had a nasty, explosive argument with a guy who called me, in Korean, the dumbest piece of stupid shit (which, I was told, wasn’t the worst thing he said about me).
So, not writing has been working, and when not working, worrying about not writing and not working. And when not working, being deathly terrified about how I’m not working. The only real respite (aside from what I’m about to say below), has been reading. I’m not a huge late night reader but I’ve recently been reading a few lines of old short stories before falling asleep and waking up and continuing reading those lines. It’s the closest, I believe, I’ve ever come to dreaming with someone.
I’ve been so stunned, and thrilled, to read the posts from these contributors who do all sorts of physical stuff. They run marathons and they garden and they play musical instruments. My physical thing, I guess, is walking around. I walk around Brooklyn. I am a middle-aged white man with a beard and baseball cap and flannel shirt and backpack who grumpily stomps (or, as I like to call it, gromps) around Brooklyn listening to Bob Dylan. It’s kind of a borough-wide pastime. Gromping! There are so many grompers, which is to say, me’s, that it gets confusing and adds fuel to the ire of one’s already-pissed-off-about-1980’s-Dylan-era-befuddlement. Sometimes. For instance, I might walk up to a gromper and do a perplexed, mirror-look thing (twisting my head this way and that) to make sure I’m not just standing before a pane of cured glass. And it’s such a relief… until we fist bump and he tells me that he’s been working on a novel for the last five years, and that Animal Collective’s earlier albums are all great but slightly overrated.
I gromp around. I’m angry about bad drivers, people who ride bicycles on the sidewalk, people who are loud, people who are rude, people who are too nice. I judge everybody. Who are these people? What are they doing here? Why are these people? How are these people people? How do they look so beautiful, and healthy? How can they afford $18 avocado toast? I’ve lived in this city for over a decade and the only things I have to show for it are a trick knee and some sort of skin disorder that WebMD tells me is either vitamin-D-deprivation or leprosy.
But anger always dries up in the end. What remains is curiosity and plain awestruckness. I complain about having worked in the service industry for so long. I would not have read half of the books I’ve read were it not for those cafés and bars. I would not have met my wife. I would not be a writer without her. There would be nothing—no gromping, no Bob Dylan-listening, no writing, nothing—without her.
Our dog has inspired me to do some practical not-writing work. He is getting older and having a tough time getting up on the bed. There are incredible solutions that people have posted online. I’m trying to do a hybrid version—a Jonathan, gromping-rendition—which involves trash-picked two-by-fours and some sheets of particle board. It is something to think about and get done while not working or writing. It is so he can have some stairs to get up on the bed. If anyone has any tips, I’d be grateful.
Jonathan Rose
Jennifer lives in Maine, where she teaches high school English. Her debut novel, published by Apprentice House Press, is set to be released in the spring of 2026. Her chapbook, Reclamation Days, was a runner-up in The Masters Review‘s 2024 Chapbook Open and was a finalist in the 2025 MWPA Chapbook Competition. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Stonecoast Review, As You Were: The Military Review, and various other literary magazines, online platforms, and writing contests. She lives with her husband, children, and unruly dog, Sissy.
Jonathan Rose is a writer based in New York. He grew up in Ohio and studied film and literature at The Ohio State University. His fiction has been published in Bodega Magazine; The Southampton Review; Vol. 1 Brooklyn; Chicago Quarterly Review, and The Masters Review. He has recently finished his first novel.