Writing Fit

I couldn’t help but think whilst walking home today, that writing is a lot like exercise…bear with me, folks.

If you don’t keep up to writing then you lose the muscles that allow you to create and construct worlds and characters – your work suffers due to the lack of a ‘strict’ regime. Just like any other muscle the brain can atrophy if it is not used regularly. As writers our mind is our most valuable asset. If we don’t give it the proper nutrition or training it needs it becomes lazy and withers. But if we stoke the fires of our imagination, if we stretch our intelligence to new limits, and work out every day to a stringent routine we can sharpen our writing instincts and become better authors for it.

Recently I’ve been trying to blog and add X amount of words to my novel each and every day – so far so good. It was tough at first because I’ve slacked off so much lately. But the more I blogged/wrote the easier it become to stick to the routine. The same can be said for exercise – whilst walking home exhausted me today I know I can do it faster, and better, and with a lot less puffing and panting. Back when I walked to work every day it was easy. Same with writing; the more I write the better I become, and the better I become the more I want to write…it’s a virtuous circle.

Writing is addictive, it releases endorphins (scientific fact…sort of). It makes us feel better when we’ve had a tough workout at the keyboard, no matter how hard it was to win the battle of procrastination. We feel a sense of accomplishment, and the harder it was to get there the better we feel.

And like exercise there may just be some times when we are desperate to stop, aching to take a break, crying out for it to finish…just two more paragraphs…*grunt* *gasp*…one more * wheeze*…DONE! Just because we want to write it doesn’t mean we’re going to enjoy every second of it. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy or we’re going to see results overnight.

What it does mean is that we are committed, that we are willing to go through ridiculous amounts of pain and agony to better ourselves. It means we are dedicated to fighting the uphill battle that is novel writing, and we are willing to get a few scrapes, bruises, and sprained ankles along the way.

Now, if I can just find some way of writing at the treadmill…I’ll be sorted!