Invitation to the Exercise

Varying your writing practice can keep things fresh and keep you motivated. You might surprise yourself with what appeals to you.

1. Write by candlelight.
2. Write with a metronome going. Try to type or write to the beat.
3. Write a sentence on a 3x5 card saying what your piece is about and keep it in front of you. (Steinbeck did this with his novels.)
4. Write standing up with your notebook or laptop on a bookshelf or kitchen countertop. 
5. Write in costume. Dress up like one of your characters. 
6. Write as you walk.
7. Don’t write a single new word—just cut or erase words that already exist.
8. Write in a different place each day this week. Try an airport, a moving vehicle, a bedroom that’s not your own, a skating rink, a place of faith. Write at a piano. Write in an aisle of a grocery store.
9. Draw everything you want to write, avoiding all alphabetic letters. Use symbols and pictorial images only.
10. Write in the dark.
11. Don’t use any words that start with “p.”
12. Type everything you write with just one hand.
13. Write while listening to something you dislike to hear.
14. Pour three glasses of three different kinds of juice [or another beverage] when you sit down to write and don’t get up until all three glasses are empty.
15. Wink or blink after each sentence you commit to the page.
16. Write only in questions--or only in if-then statements.
17. Don’t delete or erase a single letter, no matter how often you mistype or misspell something. Your typos might send you in a new direction.
18. Write while wearing a sleeping mask, earplugs, and/or gloves.
19. Write while singing or talking.
20. Pause and put down your pen for two minutes in between each sentence.

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"How artists define process is, in short, also how they define themselves." -Brent Royster