Use Writing Practice To Jump Start Your Creativity

Writers need to limber up their creative “muscles” the same way dancers or singers loosen up their bodies or voices before a practice session or a performance. Words are the medium that writers work with, and just as an artist might do some rough sketches or blend some new colors on a palette before commencing on a portrait, a writer should do some work with words before commencing “more serious” work. Now that is not to say that the warm up won’t have value, for just as a sketch may be the basis for a beautiful painting. Some writing done as warm up can become the frame around which a writer crafts a beautiful and compelling work of fiction or non-fiction.
Natalie Goldberg, in her book “Writing Down the Bones” offers many examples of free-writing to engage the mind of a writer. Her zen-like method comes down to the simple timed writing exercise: Write for ten minutes on what it felt like on the first day of school…. or, write for fifteen minutes on how a lemon tastes but you cannot use the word sour or tart.
This kind of exercises allows a writer to work with words and to stretch out. The main point is not to over-think your writing, but to turn off your internal critic and just write. If you have a defined time for the writing and a specific prompt to guide your writing you may be surprised at what comes up.
You can also use this method if you are writing a story or a scene and are not quite sure where to go next. If you are stuck in a piece of writing, try doing several short, timed writing exercises written from the perspective of different characters. You can also write several short, timed exercises with different outcomes and then go back and see if any of them can be combined with others, or if one of the exercises seems more vibrant that the others. Use timed practice as a way to jump start a writing project.
The bottom line in using writing exercises and prompts to get a writing project moving forward is to not trip yourself up by expecting too much. This is practice. This is limbering up. Give yourself permission to write complete junk. Say to yourself that “No one will ever read this.” And then just sit down and write. Set a start time and a defined period for the exercise and just keep your pen moving or your fingers tapping on the keypad. That is all there is to practice.
Perhaps you will find a nugget of gold in a writing exercise and perhaps not. The point is that you are making writing a regular practice and working steadily to understand your medium and to get used to using your imagination at will and crafting sentences one after another.