5 Reasons Why Writing Exercises Improve Your Creative Writing

Do you use any kind of writing exercises to help you write to your full potential? If not, you could be missing out on one of the top ways of becoming the best writer you can be.
Maybe the words “writing exercises” fill you with dread and images of being at school forced to write lines or struggling to write things you had absolutely no interest in?
But the kind of writing exercises we’re talking about here are different. We’re simply talking about techniques that give you new ways and new perspectives to write from, and encourage your creativity to come to the fore.
So here are 5 of the major reasons why using writing exercises can help you become a more accomplished writer:
1. You encourage your creativity to work harder. Faced with a blank page, most of us feel completely overwhelmed. Because there are so many things we COULD write, we can’t make a choice and end up writing nothing. Writing exercises give you a framework and a starting point, so your creativity can get stuck in right away. The more boundaries you have, the more creative you become within them.
2. You experience a wider range of writing techniques. However talented a writer you are, you can benefit from having an expansive range of writing experience. By using creative writing exercises, you get to sample a selection of techniques. It’s like going into a sweet shop and tasting one of each sweet before you decide to buy a bagful of one type you really love. Plus, however many new ones you try, you’ll always return to your favourites and appreciate them even more.
3. You train yourself to invent new techniques. The more you use a range of writing exercises, the more your creativity gets used to, well, being creative! As you practice more, it becomes natural to be curious about tweaking and adjusting the exercises you try, to make them even more effective for yourself. Then you’ll find you’re inventing your own new techniques as you go, without even thinking.
4. You give yourself permission to create. If you write in the same style most of the time, you may start to feel more like a photocopier than a truly creative writer. When you regularly use different writing exercises, you’re sending your creativity the strong message that it has permission to be creative, that you’re someone who’s keen to develop, open to new ideas and techniques.
5. You enjoy your writing more. Whatever you’ve written in the past, there are new exercises and techniques that you’ve not come across. Once you adopt the attitude that writing is a series of pleasurable adventures, then you can embrace new exercises just for this purpose. Your focus changes from needing an “end product” to actually enjoying the writing and the creative process.
These are 5 of the top reasons why creative writing exercises can enhance your writing.