I am walking down a mountainside in Corsica with my life-and-walking partner.

We are not talking much. It’s a difficult path. It switchbacks in sharp zig zag corners. It’s unnervingly steep. Underfoot, the surface is uneven and changeable: sometimes we’re scrambling down rocky ledges, sometimes dodging scattered stones, sometimes sliding on a loose surface of pine needles. The mountainside is heavily wooded, the path shaded, but shards of sunlight through the branches blind and bewilder us.

It takes relentless concentration, this path: when we stop to rest it’s often because we’re mentally not physically exhausted. Every step is a deliberate, considered act. Check the ground, plant your foot, test your balance, shift your weight, and repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. I have the rest of the day’s route on my phone and on the map, but I’m not thinking about that now. My only focus is on the step I’m making. I don’t have headspace for the rest of the kilometres. I notice small things alongside the path.

I think about writing, in particular about constructing a scene. It’s bit like this. Maybe there’s a big map (a plot, a plan), maybe not – but I’m not thinking about that now. I’m in the here and now, noticing the tiny things, getting the small transitions right. Moving one step at a time and making sure that each step is grounded, each move secure: psychologically, emotionally, in its movement in time and space, in cause and effect. Testing for the right word. Retreating sometimes, finding another way forward.

At the bottom of the difficult hill, we look back up to the top, and realise how far those single steps have brought us (and this of course is also exactly like writing).