You don’t need to be a master researcher to find lots of writing advice if you’re looking to hone your craft.
A quick Web search reveals numerous articles, books, and manuals on how to be a better, faster, or more successful writer. These strategies and techniques, some more helpful than others, require a sharp brain, creativity, and energy to see a project to completion.
Many tips offer cures for writer’s block or how to create believable dialogue, but an often-neglected area is how to optimize the writer, not just the writing.
Writing is a vocational aspiration for many. To get to professional status, you’ll need more than excellent writing chops and a few connections; you’ll need to be physically sharp, as well.
Keeping your body and your psyche well-tuned will help to prevent burnout while making the writing process more enjoyable.
With that in mind, here are some tips to keep you in tip-top shape:
- This may be obvious, but begin your day with breakfast. Start with a cup of green or white tea; it’s loaded with anti-oxidants and tastes great, too. Enjoy with a piece of fruit and a bowl of oats with peanut butter stirred in. This protein-packed and nutrient-rich breakfast is easy and a body-friendly departure from the coffee and pastry habit you’ve developed.
- Get outside! Stepping away from the computer is the best thing you can do to move along a stalled paragraph—even if it’s just a walk around the block. Moving the body moves the blood, thus feeding the brain with the vital oxygen needed to churn out that bestseller.
- Observe the world around you. While on a walk, look around for things you’d usually miss. How many cats are sunning on porches? When did your neighbor paint her front door hot pink? Taking off the blinders allows your mind to expand and opens you up to new ideas for writing and living.
- Breathe. Most of us breathe short and shallow; we don’t fill our lungs. It’s important to inhale deeply, expanding your belly as you take in air, then exhaling completely as your belly moves back toward your spine. The best way to re-learn how to breathe is to take a yoga class.
- Sleep. Get lots of it. The average overworked American gets 6 hours sleep, but experts agree that adults need 7 to 9 hours. Some tips for a good night’s sleep: no caffeine 4 to 6 hours before bedtime, keep your bedroom dark and cool, and don’t use the bedroom for anything but sleep and sex. If you nap, do so before 3 pm and for no longer than one hour.
Try these tips to keep your body healthy and mind agile. Remember, writing is a discipline: to succeed, you have to practice!
(These tips are a part of my forthcoming book, Creating Unprocess: The Unconventional Writer’s Guide to the Writing Life).
image credit: lia leslie via unsplash.com
Love this Shanna! Those of us who write regularly (even if we’re not ‘writers’ per se but spend a great deal of time writing for our business) often neglect our personal health and well-being for the sake of churning our work out and meeting deadlines. And since writing is primarily a ‘sitting’ activity, it comes with a host of long-term detriments to our health. LOVE that you are addressing the care + feeding of the ‘writing machine’ (i.e. the writer herself) and I look forward to hearing more about your upcoming guide! xo
Shanna! I love the above suggestions, I am on my way to do all of the above. I am just finding my creative voice and it’s been a process and unlike yourself I am far from that place where my sentences flow perfectly together. For me, I need to write and re-write and just maybe I will get to a place where I can walk away with a smile of what I have written. Since the New Year, I have done more of the above and I feel, think and enjoy myself more. Finally, looking for that balance that I yearn for (it’s a process and of course) some days I can practice self care better than others. However, I am committed to the craft and having the gift of relaxing with my green tea, reading the above and breathing all allow me BE verus to DO. Thank you for the reminder.
As someone who writes a lot and sits on front of my computer, I love this reminded to take care of ourselves. Back when I had a dog, it was so easy to take breaks throughout the day. My Jack Russell and I would head to the park, which was just what he—and I—needed: the fresh air, the walking, the being away from one’s tasks. But now that I have 3 days in which to write while my daughter is at nursery school, going out to take a walk, or even stepping away for a few minutes, is a lot more difficult. So thanks for the great reminder!
Shanna, I wish you every success with your “Un-process” Alternative Guide To Writing… it’s something the writing world needs to hear!
I love how “basic” your suggestions are — that’s the heart of it, isn’t it? Your body is the essential writer’s tool — words won’t/don’t flow when it’s neglected or reaching the limit of it’s endurance, any more than a pen will “write” when it’s almost out of ink.
Really an exception viewpoint.
Beautiful reminder and just when I need it most. I just returned from a trip that required a lot of emotional stamina so my writing (and just about everything else) sat on the back burner for a week while I tended to matters of the heart. I returned home ready to crank out not one, but three guest posts I had been asked to write. It’s amazing how profoundly writer’s block shows up when I “must” write. I am going to step away from this computer screen and take that walk today. I’m confident your suggestions will guide me back into the place I need to be to “optimize the writer”! Thank you, Shanna.
Oh, I needed to read this … b/c I am struggling with my writing Self and my Nurture Myself Self. … I am a nighttime writer, you see and so when I write, I end up working until 2 a.m. or beyond which means Nurture Myself me is MOST displeased the following morning when ordinary life demands I still be up and at ’em.
When Nurture Myself me draws the line in the sand and says: eat, damint! sleep, now! Then Writer me feels creatively backed up, unexpressed.
The result is that both worlds are less than I’d like the to be and I have no routine that serves me. What ever the magical balance is that let’s me be both, I have yet to discover it. But this post reminds me … I must keep trying for it.
c:g
This is something to bookmark just as a reminder of what really supports our writing: our bodies!
Love the hi-protein vegan quinoa breakfast – that’s what I always order at Cafe Gratitude!
For observing the world – what instantly happifies me is to go on a walk and take snaps with the iPhone. Even if I only have time to walk around the block – it’s like a vacation in 15 minutes.
Can’t wait to ready your book!