Don't Forget to Stretch

One can never overestimate the importance of warming up when writing. I guard my writing moments like precious jewels, wresting them from the jaws of pesky work and school responsibilities, manuevering them carefully around important landmarks like husband and children, rescuing them from the hobgoblins of Facebook and Twitter. When I finally sit down at the keyboard in those precious minutes, I hardly want to fritter away the first fifteen on fluff.

Without warming up, though, my brain begins to cramp (to stretch the analogy to its breaking point) and that's when the blinking contest between myself and my cursor begins. Blink. Blink. I have no idea what to write. Blink. Blink. No one is ever going to want to read this crap. Blink. Blink. I wonder if anyone's responded to my last Facebook status . . .

And so the entire night's treasure trove of sparkly writing minutes ends up flushed down the toilet like a dead goldfish. How tragic.

Even more painful are the times when I've set aside a proscribed amount of time to write, only to find that I didn't really hit my stride until three minutes before time's up and I have surgically remove my feverishly pounding fingers from the keys in order to go to work, pick up my kids, etc.

Another tragedy that could have been avoided by a warm-up. A pre-writing writing activity to get the brain juice flowing (and doesn't that sound yummy?), work the caffeine through to the tips of the fingers, and wake up the muse. Five to fifteen minutes invested wisely at the start of a writing session can pay off faster than compound interest--and who doesn't love compound interest?

Warm-up activities are as varied as writers themselves. Some of my writing friends have proclaimed the virtues of some elusive beast known as "Morning Pages." This was described to me as "opening up a blank page first thing in the morning and writing whatever comes to mind." Maybe it's because I'm not a morning person, only two words register in my consciousness first thing in the morning: "coffee"and "snooze." The whole thing felt suspiciously like journaling to me; another writing exercise beloved by many, but that never worked for me. Journaling makes me way too self-aware, a quality that only sharpens the claws of my inner critic. This is never conducive to free thought.

I collect writing exercises like some women collect shoes. I pick out some that look comfy, some that look sparkly, and some that look like they could kick ptootie and take names. I try them all on and keep what fits. This blog is one of my favorite pre-writing exercises. I find it very helpful to have a reading audience in mind as I write, and blogging helps me connect with my audience, even if most of you are imaginary--er, I mean lurking. Yeah, that's it.

Outlines and timelines are also helpful prewriting tools (and help me out of a jam when I hit a wall, too). I am a semi-outline person, which is a discussion for a future blog, but I find that the structure of outlines and timelines is visually stimulating and helps me to pick up on patterns and contradictions I wouldn't have seen otherwise. Once I have a new plot twist or a loose end that needs to be tied up, I'm off and writing.

I also find that physical activity gets my brain working in ways that facilitate creative expression and clarity of thought. Like many people, some of my best ideas come to me in the shower, especially after a run. I know, *groan* -- I hate to run, too, but the pain pays off when my fingers are flying through my next chapter.

Now that I'm nice and limber, I'm headed back into my story world to see what boulders I can find to hurl at my unsuspecting protagonist and the people she cares about. My cool-down, by the way, usually consists of crawling into bed and collapsing into a deep slumber. This is terribly bad form by workout standards, but it can be a very effective carrot at the end of my stick.