Don't Nix Writing Exercises

 

We're constantly being told to exercise our bodies to attain and keep good health. There are exercise tapes, exercise programs on tv, YouTube exercise films, health and fitness gyms that advertise to lure us in to work on our bodies. Exercise in any way we can to keep in shape and promote good health. We hear it so much that we start believing it, but do we devote part of each day to actually exercising? Some do, plenty do not.

Doing writing exercises is much the same. We know it's good for our writing ability, that writing exercises help move us along our writing journey, and that we can become stronger writers by doing writing exercises. But, how many writers do the exercises on a regular basis? Our intentions might be good, but life gets in the way. No, we allow life to get in the way. 

One writer I know does her Morning Pages faithfully. She has a spiral notebook to write her thoughts early each morning. It's the first thing she does each day. Cup of coffee next to her, the house still quiet, and off she goes writing about whatever comes to mind. It could be what she needs at the grocery store, or it could also be some revelation she had the night before or a concern about one of her children. Anything goes. The best thing here is that this exercise is a constant in her life. 

Some writers do a ten minute freewrite on a word they find by closing their eyes and pointing at a printed page. They don't do this haphazardly, but almost every day. It's a warm-up for the rest of the day's writing. If you use the excuse that you don't have time to do that every day, I'd tell you that you can spare ten minutes if you want to. Think of how many other ten minute slots where you actually waste time. Ten minutes is not asking too much of anyone.

If you need help finding exercises, use your favorite search engine. Or go to a bookseller like Amazon or Barnes and Noble to find a book filled with writing exercises. If that book is in a prominent place in your writing area, it would be a good reminder to flex your writing muscles each day before you begin on your work in progress, or a new piece of writing. 

Need an exercise to get you started? For each word in the list below, write a list of possible adjectives to use to describe the noun. Next, write a sentence using the noun and your adjectives.

umbrella

car

dog

building

king

star

rain

piano

bell

Don't nix writing exercises. They are meant to help you, not waste your time.