Writing : brain exercises? or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Writing

Check out the book Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande. She talks about getting up in the morning and writing first thing. Then she talks about training yourself to write on a schedule later on in the day. Also, Steve Pressfield, The War of Art, talks a lot about becoming a professional. Basically, do it every single day. You probably have a job you go to, so treat writing the same way. This trains your mind to be ready to write when you sit down. Or as Pressfield says, the muse will only visit those who put in the work. Everyone is different, but the same time daily writing routine works for me. Anne Lamott, in Bird By Bird, talks about taking a small picture frame, and when you are stuck, tell yourself all you need to do is write enough to fill that picture frame. Those are just a few things that might help.

If you're looking strictly for exercises, you could do worse than The 3 AM Epiphany by Brian Kiteley. Pretty cool and fairly concise, can help you if you're just looking for some random things to force you into a narrow style. If it's just coming up with something to write period, you could try The Pocket Muse by Monica Wood or something similar (there are lots of those kinds of prompt/idea books. Or even something like The Writer's Toolbox by Jamie Cat Callan if you really want to trick yourself (it's sort of presented like a game). These are all random things that have been given to me. I've not really used them much, but they seem like nice ideas if you're the right kind of person to use them.

I did do a few exercises out of The 3 AM Epiphany and enjoyed them a lot, actually. I think it's a pretty legit book, and if you're trying to just say, "Okay, I'm going to write in this style from this perspective without doing X," it can be fun and interesting. If you take some of your ideas, apply a couple of the rules from the book to really narrow your focus, maybe that would help jump-start you by removing options.

I'll second Stephen King's book. Kind of half writing book, half memoir, and it's a light and sincere read. I really enjoyed it and it does have some practical advice on the craft, on larger elements of writing in general, and just... life. Whatever you think of his fiction, it's pretty great.

I started just writing with a pen and paper. No internet to distract me, don't get that many phone calls, and it just feels better. Of course the downside to that is about 100,000 words I need to type up.

Here's what I do. I wouldn't go as far to call it good advice, but it might help you out if you're looking to try something new:

Take an idea you came up with and never wrote because you thought it was stupid or just unpublishable. Use that as your prompt. Since you think it's crap already, you won't be concerned about whether you're doing the idea justice or not. Don't write it in a way that's intentionally bad - try to polish the turd of an idea as much as possible - but never let it cross your mind that this could be the best thing you've ever written.

Then lo and behold, you've written a story. It might suck, but I'm of the opinion that one has to accept the fact that a lot of their writing is bound to suck anyway. The sucky stuff is worth writing because it's good exercise. You get more practice writing crap than writing nothing.

3 AM is pretty awesome.  So is 4 AM. 

I'll second that too. I rarely record anything, but I think up a lot of stuff when I'm walking the dog or exercising. I've heard many famous writers talk about walking as a real creative lubricant.

Writing is the exercise.

Oh, wait, you guys all had real advice.

Don't listen to me.

JY is kinda right. My thing is to simply put pen to paper and see what comes out. Dont censor yourself, dont stop. Just keep that pen moving for a set time limit. I do 10 minutes, but you can do less. Once you get to minute 5, you'll be cruising. The ideas that come out may not be brilliant, but it will get the juices going.

Because what's actually horrific isn't all the bullshit you see in horror movies and splatterpunk books. That's just gore, and we've been inundated with it, so much so that a lot of people try to sit down and write something horrific, all they think is "make it gross, kill somebody". I'm guilty of that too. It's a reflex.

Instead of just "trying to write a horror story", try to think of what really makes you afraid. What could happen in your life that would really terrify you? Start there, see where it takes you. You'll likely find there's nothing horrific about it at all (in the sense of monsters or serial killers or what have you), but at the same time, you might be able to build on it, take it somewhere.

I could probably rant about this for a while, especially since I've had a couple of beers, but I think there's something real and useful about fear, something beautiful about works of horror in general, but the older I've gotten, the more I've realized that so little of what's classified as horror is actually frightening to me.

We're talking Resident Evil versus Silent Hill, since I'm from the videogame generation (and I'm speaking of the games, not the movies). One is OMG ZOMBIES SHOOT THEM OH LOOK GIANT SPIDER. The other is... best experienced rather than described; but so much more than just the violence or things jumping out and biting you. It has that too, but so much more. I guess you'd say it's the concept of something gross or exciting versus "psychological horror", but I don't think even that cuts it. Silent Hill is full of conventional horror tropes along with the deeper stuff, and the two work in tandem to make something truly frightening. But so few things seem to manage that, these days. I wonder why that is?

Either way, I'd say get away from all that stereotypical garbage. No lakes with monsters, no camping trips, no deserted cabins, no haunted mansions. Take it away from all that and you might find your imagination excited.

There's something to be said for saying "screw it", taking a night off, and just reading something good instead!

Write down all the reasons why you think you can't write. Do this on paper.

Take the paper outside and burn it.

It's 1am and there's too much great shit here - some good books/resources for me to research and add to my own library (I don't read Stephen King, but he's prolific and I'll take youses guys word that his book is legit). 3AM sounds interesting.

I'd also like to suggest "Naming the World" for great essays and exercises to get your juices flowing. It was recommended to me by a writing instructor. I haven't used it in a while, but when I have it's worked well. 

Mostly I wanted to comment because I'm trying my best to adopt GaryP's philosophy. He's dead on. I've not been doing it every day, but making more of a concerted effort and enjoying some nice results. 

There's also an exercise I used to do for lyric writing that evoked the senses.

Wake up in the morning and one of the first things you do is write. You set a timer for 10 minutes. Then you write whatever the fuck comes to mind for those 10 minutes. Timers up, you stop. But during those 10 minutes, let it flow. Try to use all your senses. Consider it a light morning workout. The theory was that you woke your inner writer up and he/she is going to spend the day with you - partially in that mindset while you go about your real life obligations.

As much as I like that exercise - I predictably strayed away. I suck.

I've done the 10 minutes in the morning several times over the years, Otis, but like you, I also strayed. For several months one spring/summer, the wife and I would head out to a coffee shop and write our morning stuff. Very enjoyable, even though it wasn't writing as soon as I woke up. 

One weird thing I tried (I'm right handed) was write left handed, just to see if it would unwind some other part of my brain. I did that during the coffee shop morning sessions. I even drew left handed. I didn't have any sudden creative epiphany because of it. Never noticed a difference with my brain function that I could detect. But it was fun. 

Yeah, I'm useless that way too. May as well have been trying to write with a boxing glove.

I'm ambidextrously venemous.

"So Jess is that different then when you write with your right hand?"

Yeah.  The right hand is sarcastic and insincere.  But I type with both hands.

Ah, that explains so much.