10-Step Writing Warm-up Exercise

Try this before your next writing session.

It’s a good idea to warm up a bit before working out, running, playing piano, et cetera, right? So why not warm up before diving into your current work in progress?

Or, if you’ve got the Creative Urge but aren’t sure what to do with it, try this exercise. That urge sans outlet is often identified as Writer’s Block, by the way. I don’t know if it actually is. Maybe.

Step 1: Grab a book, magazine (do people still read those?), or whatever.

Step 2: Close your eyes.

Step 3: Flip through the book to any random page.

Step 4: Put your finger down anywhere on either page.

Step 5: Open your eyes and read that sentence.

Step 6: Set a timer for 15 minutes.

Step 7: Using that sentence as the FIRST sentence of your story, begin writing. Just go. Fast, fast, fast. No thinking. No doubting, no staring off into space, no going to make tea first, no driving to the store to get tea. Just go! Write. As fast as you can. Tune everything out. This isn’t about a brilliant story or prize-winning prose. It’s about getting your fingers literally moving and getting your brain/mind engaged to process words.

Step 8: See what happens.

Step 9: When the timer goes off, if you’re on a roll, continue writing!

Step 10: Bask in the profound sense of creation you’ve just enjoyed. Or save it, close it, and go back to your WIP. Warm now and ready to roll.

You may find that something quite good comes out of this. A story you quite like. It’s happened for me.

Note: reading the previous day’s work is also a great way to warm up and to get back into your story. Staying in your story is one of the main reasons why so many writers recommend writing every day. Otherwise you’re in and out, in and out, and your narrative may wind up feeling episodic.

Step 11 (Bonus!): Have FUN! And then go make/buy tea.

*Images generated with AI.

I use Microsoft Edge’s built-in free Bing/Copilot/Whatever they call it now which uses ChatGPT-4 and Dall-E. It’s gotten much better at rendering fingers correctly and being able to create words in the image. It used to be gibberish. Play with it if you’ve not yet done so. It’s a lot of fun. And it can spark all kinds of fun new ideas for your writing.

Whether or not it’s bad for artists and the entire human race is a discussion for another time.