101 Writing Warm-Ups to Start Your Day

‣ Introduction

Looking to improve your attitude toward writing? Look no further! In this book, I will show you some fun techniques that will get your fingers moving and your ideas flowing.

When it comes to writing, one of my main goals at The Writer Circle is to help you become a better writer. However, this is not always an easy task. Many of you have negative feelings towards writing. You may struggle to come up with ideas, or freeze when you don't know how to spell a word. Some of you just look at a blank piece of paper and feel overwhelmed and intimidated.

Don't worry, there's something you can do to help improve these feelings. It's very easy to do and it only takes 10-15 minutes a day: a writing warm-up. Warm-ups are the secret weapon of a creative person. It can spawn the ideas and get you out of a creative rut. In other words—it is the best way to improve yourself and your writing skills in a variety of ways.


WHAT IS A WRITER'S WARM-UP?

A writer's warm up is a fun exercise that prepares you for the work ahead. It's designed to help you leap past any writer's block you may feel and get you started writing quickly and easily. The goals?

‣ To get your fingers on your keyboard and typing.

‣ To begin getting your writer's brain in gear.

‣ To write—with no judgment and no expectation of an outcome.

The main goal during these warm-up sessions is to immerse yourself into the process without committing to the fearful "big thing".

Technically it's simple: you get your fingers on the keyboard, you start to clang words, you start to compose random sentences, and then you start to blow entire paragraphs! The secret in doing it smoothly is to write without judgment and expectation of any outcome. You just do it because you need to do another thing. You let your instinct do the hard part.

Remember: the point of these warm-ups is not to create publishable material. It's to spend a short time getting yourself ready to create publishable work.


WHY DO WARM-UPS MATTER?

The fastest way to become a proficient author is to make writing part of your daily routine. And that's my main purpose of sharing these warm-ups—I want to help you turn writing into a daily habit. When you write habitually, you open up a channel that allows the ideas in your head to more easily become a physical expression of those ideas. You go from thoughts to words on a page faster. Your writing improves.

And because you're better at writing, you enjoy it more.

And because you enjoy it more, you write more often.

It's a happy circular pattern of, "Doing more, which leads to doing better, which leads to doing more." By writing something everyday, you will ease the way of expressing your thoughts. Your active dictionary will be bigger and you will have no trouble in representing certain concepts in any given situation under any circumstances. It's also fun!


ARE THERE ANY RULES?

When I introduce writing warm-ups to people, I like to tell them that they get to break most writing rules (they love that). However, I do have three main guidelines for you to follow:

‣ You MUST write the whole time without stopping (that means NO erasing or backspacing). Make a mistake? Cross it out or keep going.

‣ DO NOT worry about spelling, grammar, punctuation, or handwriting (although YOU need to be able to read it)

‣ Push Yourself—try to beat your previous word count.


WHEN DO YOU DO WARM-UPS?

Do one every day before you start a project. Or, just do one every day even if you don't have anything to write about! You don't need to spend a lot of time on these: 10–15 minutes should do it. You'll still be working on your craft, you'll still be moving forward. It's all writing.

These can be especially fun to do in the comment section so you can compare versions with each other. It's fun to see how motives and feelings are interpreted by different writers. And remember: no judgment and no expectation of results. Let your fingers do the thinking, not your mind.

Ready?