Writing Warm-ups

8:52 AM

By:Jessica
From...http://younghomemakers.blogspot.com/

I have a list printed out for me which my wonderful mother found on the internet and gave to me a few years back. It is a list of Writing Warm-Ups. Although I rarely use it before I begin to write, a lot of people find writing warm-ups very helpful.

It's kind of hard to explain exactly what a writing warm-up is. It's like warming up your voice before singing, or warming up before you play the piano by doing your scales and such. Or when you stretch before you go jogging. It gets you to warm-up your brain before you write.

Most people do writing warm-ups before writing. This is good for what I wrote above... getting your mind active before you sit down to write. It helps you to think about things. Some are warm-ups like *describing what a knight from old would buy in a modern day supermarket. Or writing a short news article about a pair of pink fuzzy socks that have gone missing*. It could be absolute nonsense! It doesn't matter. It just gets you writing and using your brain in a way that will help you when you write.
* I came up with these myself spur of the moment just as I was writing this. You can do them if you want and your can modify them to be whatever you want. Like changing the supermarket one to a man in a mascott chicken suit instead of a knight! LOL!

For me, I tend to use writing warm-ups on days when I either don't feel much like writing, or when I am in a creative dry spell. There is no rule as to when or what you have to do as a writing warm up. It is there simply to get those creative juices flowing. Do whatever works best for you.


Here are some writing warm-ups off my sheet and some that I made up myself. You don't have to stick only to the ones I list below. In fact, try to come up with some of your own. You can even do some writing warm-ups with another person.

Writing warm-ups are there, just for the fun of it. So let your imagination go wild!

1. The two minute drill- Write as many words as you can relating to a certain category such as flavors of ice cream, colors, states, presidents, restaurants, etc. (do this one with a friend and see who can think of more in the span of two minutes)

2. Unrelated words- Write two unrelated words down on a piece of paper and then write a few sentences using these words. example: Turkey and basketball. (weird, huh!) ( you can also do this with another person. Write down the words and then switch and write sentences for the words the other person came up with.)

3. Write a silly want add for a pretend newspaper- "Boy to trace gasoline lines with lighted candle. Must be willing to travel" (I didn't come up with this one, it was on the paper)

4. Write a silly home remedy for... Baldness, a common cold, etc.

5. Find and cut out a headline from a newspaper- write your own article using the headline you cut out.

6. Write a sentence that has at least four t's- or any other letter!

7. Write a tongue twister

8. Make up a news headline and then write an article for it.
( This one is really fun with other people. I have done it with my two younger brothers and we had a blast. We each wrote a headline and then handed it off to the person next to us. Then we wrote an article for the headline we had received. My younger brother came up with this hilarious one... "Nuclear Fallout in a Closet!" At the time, I didn't really know what nuclear fallout was [but my younger brother did. LOL!] It was really funny because I made up a whole story about what I guessed it was! We cracked up laughing!)

9. Describe something in nature. Go into details by using the senses. Smell, taste, touch...etc.
example. A waterfall. write about the noise it makes, how it makes you feel, what it reminds you of...etc.

10. Pick a letter in the alphabet and write as many words as you can think of that start with that letter. (I do this all the time when I am practicing my handwriting- something I do to slow myself down and relax. Not to mention it gets my creative juices flowing because it helps me with my writing and also helps me with my handwriting.)

So there you have it! Some ideas to get you started. You could probably look up "Writing Warm-Ups" on the internet and find a bunch of different lists and ideas.

Hope this helps both with your writing and creativity!

Happy Writing,
Jessica

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1 comments

  1. Hmm, this is an interesting concept! I've never heard of this before. I'll have to try it next time I can't think of anything to write. (which actually does happen once in a while! :-).

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