Exercise for Writers – part 2
Writer?
Finding it hard to exercise?
Check out Part 1 of Exercise for Writers, and then do continue…
Number 3
Appreciating exercise as a way of exercising the imagination.
So with No1 and 2, you’re multi-tasking to maximise efficiency of a passive exercise (watching/listening) with an active exercise. But there’s definitely a split in concentration there. Exercise on its own can be exercise for both body and imagination – but that’s when Time (as in ‘I don’t have enough’) and Motivation (as in ‘I don’t have any’) raise their baleful gaze and send many writers slinking back to their desk, and probably their fifth coffee of the day which may very well require the dippage of cookies or complimentary crisps.
I know the equation. Coffee goes in, writing comes out.
Now we’ve all experienced the way familiar activities kind of disengage the conscious brain, often leading to unexpected spurts of creativity – who hasn’t had some astounding flash of genius while doing very rote tasks like the dishes, driving or going to the bathroom? So how about we substitute those things, just for instance, with activities like going for a walk, a run, a swim, a cycle? These are just the sorts of tasks that seem to allow the right side of the brain to take a break from thinking about annoying daily bollocks, disengage a bit and deal with important things. Creative things. And if you want to pimp your creative self to awesomeness, try using thematic music selections or just lightly focusing on a particular plot, character, problem etc, because these are times where you can make surprising leaps of creativity and logic that simply wouldn’t happen sitting at a desk bashing your head against the keyboard.
So this isn’t exercising while media consuming – it’s using exercise as part of your media creation. It’s about not looking at exercise as an annoying thing you Should Do But Is Really A Big Distraction but looking at exercise as an opportunity to walk around your current project from different angles. To hold the story and characters lightly and allow your mind to play with them while you’re gallivanting around/lapping the pool.
But: TIME IS THE ENEMY, right? Ok, are there ways to try to built this into your current schedule? Instead of driving or training/tubing to work, can you cycle instead? Lose the aaaargh of transport and get your exercise and mind-space doing something that has to be done anyway (although detaching the mind and cycling in, say, London, can have some serious OH&S implications – said from experience, although that doesn’t stop me). It’s that time where you get to disengage your brain and let Stuff float up. The problems you’re grappling with sometimes solve themselves. Sometimes you discover problems you weren’t even aware of. That might not seem a win at the time, but better sooner than later, eh? And sometimes, as a bonus win, you discover solutions (ok, and problems) via realising the solution to something you didn’t even know was a problem in the first place. Get in.
And finally, more Technical Blah to consider when re-wiring your attitude towards exercise, to see it as a benefit, not a chore:
- exercise helps you live longer, strengthens your immune system, improves blood pressure, bone density, metabolic rate and blah blah blah blah blah…
Yeah, I get it. Long term stuff can be hard to prioritise in the ever present here and now. So prioritise this: right here, right now, it helps sharpen concentration and means you can sit and throw shit at that computer screen for longer. It’s probably going to be less shitty shit too if you’ve broken up your day-job-desk-sitting and your writer-desk-sitting.
It will almost certainly look less like this.
- you spend your time creating interesting, dynamic, kick ass and inspirational characters, right? So why the hell do you get to be a sedentary slob then? Be a superhero (after all, all superheroes are just normal dudes pretending to be superheroes, whether writing, drawing, acting, reading or watching them). Pimp yourself out. Why do your characters have to do all the work? Pump some iron. Lose some weight. Eat better. Look better. Feel better. Live it. Your job is to imagine you’re other people – it’s not being crazy, it’s being good at what you do. Some days I’m Vandal, some days I’m Sienna, some days I’m Rael, some days I’m Buffy, and occasionally I get a bit carried away and dress up as Xena. Doesn’t hurt anyone and believe me, I feel fiiiiine.
I do get some odd looks on the train though.
- DON’T TROUGH CRAP FOOD WHEN SITTING ON YOUR ASS ALL DAY. You can’t possibly exercise off all the calories you can put in your mouth without even thinking. If you know you’re going to end up raiding the kitchen, make sure it’s full of carrot sticks and celery and apples, not chips and cookies. Don’t be a muppet in Tesco. Exercise control at the checkout and you won’t have to at home when you know you’ll do anything not to write that next page/scene/sentence/word. What you don’t buy, you can’t eat. It’s that easy. As a writer, you’re probably broke too. Two birds, one stone. No muppets involved.
DO NOT LISTEN TO THEM. And do not look into Miss Piggy's eyes.
- You can learn new skills with exercise, which are not only awesome but can help with writing. Home exercise DVDs mean you can learn to dance, fight, do yoga, do kung fu and Get Awesome from your own lounge. If you’re writing someone who kicks ass, not a bad idea to know how to do some kickage yourself. Even if no-one else’s ass is ever involved.
Oh come on. Why wouldn't you?
- So maybe you can’t possibly exercise through The Killing because it requires your entire concentration. Fair enough. How about using the advert break then for something other than going to the kitchen/channel surfing/texting your mates/checking your emails/moaning about how lousy the ads are. Run a circuits regieme through the ads. 20 press ups, 20 crunches, 20 squats, 2 lunges, 5 burpees, whatever. Exercising in advert breaks is hardly the most efficient way of doing it cos your heart rate goes up then plummets back to near dead 2 mins later, but better than nothing. Be creative. Watch less BBC so that you can have ad breaks.
- After a day of sitting, whether writing or in a day job, the idea of coming home to sit again can be really damn hard to face. Been there. Here’s the benefit of weighing in with some exercise – by the time you’ve done it, you can’t WAIT to sit your butt back down. You become motivated to write when you might otherwise be diverting just as much energy into procrastinating as you could be channelling productively into exercise.
- EXERCISE ALWAYS FEELS GOOD AFTER (if you’ve done it properly. If you’ve done a half-assed effort, don’t moan about getting half-assed results, ok). Writing often bites all the way through and after because for whatever reason, it’s not clicking that day, the muse is on strike, screw it. But however much you might resent the exercise at the time, you know it will be worth it in the end*. Hold onto that.
*injuries, accidents and DOMS notwithstanding
And lastly, a word from the ever-motivational Nike…
Nice post, really enjoyed it. Loving the Xena look and the cakes too. If you can find a way to exercise while we write, that would be great!
But seriously, I train four times a week (running twice a week and aikido twice a week) and some times am too tired to sit down to write – any advice for that?
Hey Marc
Glad you enjoyed it, cheers! That’s great that you work out so regularly, and I’m well envious of the Aikido. I’m meant to be doing a photoshoot later in the year with a bokken so maybe you can show me a few tricks so that I can fake it well, instead of looking like a muppet. Or cupcake. Or both.
When I’m done working out excessively professionally, I’ll be back into capoeira and looking to start other martial arts quick as anything.
Now are you too tired to write after the exercise, or just generally? If it’s after, you might want to look at your post-exercise fuelling; if it’s just generally, you definitely want to look at diet but also other factors like sleep and the time of day you’re naturally most efficient. I prefer to write in the morning – I’m way more alert and procrastinate significantly less when it’s too damn early to be doing anything BUT what I got up to do. But because I now often work early mornings, I’m getting the laptop out late afternoon and it’s frankly a bit sucky.
Happy to help if I can.