Tips for Writers, Refresh Your Writing Soul

Image by Suzanne Pitner

It’s been a long week or day or morning. You’ve been working hard. You still have much to write, but you need a break. What kind of break can you take that will inspire and revive your writing spirit, without becoming an exercise in procrastination?

We all do it. We get to a hard spot in the plot. We’re stuck. All of a sudden, doesn’t it seem like your refrigerator needs to get cleaned? Of course, you have laundry to fold, papers to grade, that movie you need to watch so you can send it back to Netflix. That’s procrastination, my writing friends.

To avoid procrastinating, choose a refreshing activity that will inspire you to write. Choose something that will get you pumped to get back to the keyboard, something that will have you pulling out your writer’s notebook before it’s time to get back to work. Here are three of my favorite activities to do when I need a break.

Read Writing Guides

When I read writing books, I always try to apply the advice to my current WIP. (WIP is work-in-progress, if you’re a newbie to the writing world.) It inspires me to change old scenes, add details to scenes, and create entirely new ideas. Some of my favorite writing books, in no particular order, are:

The Portable MFA in Writing, by the New York Writers’ Workshop

Plot and Structure, by James Scott Bell

The Nighttime Novelist, by Joseph Bates

The Weekend Novelist, by Robert Ray

Word Painting, by Rebecca McClanahan

Zen and the Art of Writing, by Ray Bradbury

Writing the Breakout Novel, by Donald Maass

The Breakout Novelist, by Donald Maass

Techniques of the Selling Writer, by Dwight V. Swain

Reading Like a Writer, by Francine Prose

Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott

On Writing Well, by William Zinsser

Class notes from any Margie Lawson classes.

These books have served me well over the years. These are the books I go back to again and again, pulling advice out of them whenever I’m in a stuck spot.

Getting Some Exercise to Stir the Muse

Sometimes getting outside and exercising is all it takes to get your creative mind working on a problem. I tell my students we need an fitness break when I see them beginning to drift off from the lesson we’re working on. We take a ten minute run around the track, shoot some hoops, play some games, and then they come back to the class energized and ready to get back to work.

Using the same principle, as a writer, you can grow tired after sitting at the computer for hours. You can turn to coffee or an energy drink, but why not choose something that will inspire you instead? Go for a walk or a bike ride, and take notice of the people and places around you. Go for a swim. Take a hike. Whatever you choose, do something physical with no purpose.

By this I mean don’t go for a walk to the store to get groceries. If you do, you’ll be thinking about groceries, and not your story. You want to be in the moment and leave your mind open to new possibilities. So choose a physical activity that doesn’t take much thought, and that allows you to notice your surroundings.

Artwork can Inspire Writing

If you’re an artist, you could take a break to work in your medium of choice, be it paint, clay, charcoal and paper, or anything else you do. If you’re not an artist, a trip to a local art gallery or museum might lead you to some inspiring pieces. Sometimes a quick tour of art galleries on the Internet can be a refreshing break when you only have five or ten minutes.

Everyone has different activities to inspire themselves. Some people use classes or conferences for inspiration. What works for you? Take advantage of the ones you enjoy the most. The only caveat is to remember you have to get back to writing. If you choose to read or exercise or enjoy artwork, don’t let it become another form of procrastination. Use it to refresh you and inspire you to write and then write again.