Writing Warm-Up Exercises For Overcoming Writer’s Block
What do running and writing have in common?
Before you start your run, you likely take a moment to stop and stretch your muscles. You warm up your body for the jog ahead.
Writing should be no different. You should take a moment to stretch your creative muscles before diving into your day’s writing work.
Benefits of Writing Warm-Ups
Stopping for ten minutes before opening your current work in progress has many benefits, from sparking new ideas to overcoming writer’s block.
Engaging in a short warm-up exercise will put your creative mind in the driver’s seat, especially if you’ve spent all day in the analytical mind at work or school. It’s the difference between running in your work clothes versus your running gear - one feels a bit more comfortable for the task at hand.
Writing warm-ups also get your creative juices flowing. By writing about a different topic completely, you may find yourself making connections and coming up with new ideas for whatever your main project is right now.
When you’re in the throes of writer’s block, and confronted with the fact that you can’t write for the moment, the last thing you want to do is sit down at the page. At times such as those, writing warm-up exercises like the ones below are almost so prescriptive that it’s hard not to come up with ideas as you go.
Read on for 5 writing warm-ups to to overcome writer’s block and find inspiration.
Freewriting
Freewriting, often called stream-of-consciousness writing, is simply writing down every stray thought that comes into your head for a specific number of pages or a a set time. Even if you spend 10 minutes writing ‘I don’t know what to write,’ it’s working. You still showed up at the page.
It’s my experience that even if I start with 'I dont’ know what to write’ line after line, there eventually comes a moment when some other thought pushes through. It may be the list of things I have to do, or an idea I’ve always had. A lyric for a song I’m writing or an everyday stressor. All of it is good. All of it is worth writing down.
In Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, this kind of writing is called ‘writing past the censor.’ We all have an inner censor that stops our words for a myriad of reasons. Freewriting allows us to give form to every thought, and teaches us to ignore the inner voice of dissent, and simply fill pages with words.
Use a Prompt
Sometimes we need a kickstart to our writing. This is where prompts come in handy.
By giving us something to write from, we don’t have to figure out what to write ourselves. We just answer the question in front of us.
There are countless prompts to write from, some of which I detail on this blog, from journal prompts to genre-specific. To start with, here are three to get you on the page.
How do you want to be remembered?
This prompt naturally brings to mind our deepest desires, even if we didn’t know them when we sat down to write. Forcing us to see the bigger picture of our lives, we find what’s important to us and what’s not. You are likely to be surprised by what comes up.
Write a letter to your first love.
Whether you have one or are still waiting for that first experience, this prompt allows is to tap into our emotions, a key to effective writing.
What is your main character’s greatest fear?
Similar to finding our deepest desires in the first prompt on this list, this prompt allows us to humanise the main character of our work in progress. I believe our greatest fears are linked to our deepest desires, and knowing this about our main character gives them depth with which to write from.
Sensory Exercise
Writing is a very cerebral practice. It’s all in the mind. This warm-up drops us into the body.
Start your writing by answering the follwing:
What can you hear right now?
What can you see?
What can you feel?
What noises can you hear?
What can you smell?
Being embodied in yourself before showing up to the page will give your writing dimension it may not have had before. We experience the world through our senses. May your characters do the same.
Character Stream-of-Consciousness
This is my undefeated champion of writing warm-ups.
As with freewriting, it requires you to write every stray thought that passes through your mind, this time as the character in your story.
This is the space and time for the character to speak in a way they can’t in the narrative of your work in progress. And it is exemplary for revealing a character’s inner hopes and fears and beliefs.
Some of what you write may find its way into your story, and a lot of it won’t. It still gave you a warm up before starting, and at the very least, you will know your chatacter a little better.
Rewrite An Ending
Think of your favourite book, film or TV show. How did it end? Now I want you to write for 10 minutes about a different ending completely.
Whether it’s fixing the ending of Game of Thrones, making it so Voldemort wins, or Frodo stayed in the Shire; this exercise makes you think in new, creative ways. By starting off a writing session with this mindset, our writing may become easier.
These are 5 writing warm-up exercises to help you overcome writer’s block and find inspiration. What are some of your own writing warm-ups?
