So, you’ve set up or picked out your writing space. You’ve got yourself there at the time you’ve chosen for your writing practice. You’re ready to go and suddenly you have the awful thought – and feeling - “What am I going to write about?”

It’s a thought and a feeling I’ve had myself plenty of times. It’s like arriving at the gym and wondering ‘where do I start?’ Especially if, like me, you don’t know a lot about the equipment, or aerobic versus anaerobic, core versus cardio, and so on. But with writing I’ve found it’s much easier and simpler to get started. The goals and the machinery are a lot less complicated. You just need to get familiar with some of them and choose what works for you. It doesn’t really matter where you start from as long as you get going. 

One exercise I use is having a routine to follow. A routine that I’ve gotten into is getting up before everyone else in the house, and going out to sit in the garden to do my writing practice. I simply go out with my pen and paper and sit. I use all my senses to feel the morning on my skin, to smell and taste the new day, to hear what’s there, to look around and see what this new day looks like. 

I wait and watch for a thought, an impulse, a feeling to poke at me. And I start writing from there. It is, literally, something as simple as “The breeze blows through the trees...” And then I’m off. It takes a bit of practice to trust yourself but it’s so worth it. You're now doing something that no one else in the world can do except you. You're now doing something  that no-one else that has ever lived has done and that no one that will ever live can do. You're writing your pure, original thoughts. You're swimming in the ocean of yourself. 

Sometimes these impulses are cul-de-sacs and, after writing a few sentences, I find myself sitting and waiting and watching again. Sometimes they’re the start of a journey. But whichever happens it’s exhilarating. I’m now engaged in my life in a profound way.

And, of course, you need to be flexible. Because life happens. It may be raining or too cold or dark to go outside, you may be traveling. Or, like this morning for me, one of the dogs ate some grass when I brought her out for her morning hygiene and she threw up on the floor on her way back in. This, as you can imagine, required an adjustment to my normal routine. However, I like variety every now and then. As well as life happening to interrupt my routine, I have a range of routines I use to introduce variety, to make sure I don’t get set in my ways. Changing things up brings a different energy, I’ve noticed, which is always refreshing. And it’s good for your writing exercise as well. 

Another exercise I do quite often is to pick a memory and start writing a story about it. I used to think I didn’t remember much about my past. But when I started writing about it in this way, I was amazed at what came back and came out in the process. The way this works for me is that I start writing, using the memory as a trigger. Then, rather than looking back and trying to jog the memory, I simply follow it in that moment and just keep writing what comes out next. I let go of the memory, really, it was just a starting point, and let the writing come out as it will. You can look at the writing later and see what’s there, if you want. That can be a bit of fun. But from the point of view of your writing practice the activity is the important thing and not what you've written. 

This particular exercise sometimes brings an added bonus with it as well. My children still like hearing stories from my own and my wife’s childhoods. I think this is the same for most of us, we like hearing stories from anyone older than us about what life was like “back then”, so to speak. The exercise of writing about my memories provides me with much richer reminiscences and tales to share with them when the occasion arises. And, remember, it’s your story. So whatever way it comes out, only you can tell it that way, which makes it entirely unique.

A third type of exercise, that’s similar to the one above, is to spread photos out on the desk or screen in front of you. Pick one and start writing about what you remember. Or start writing about what it makes you think of just then, in that moment. Again, the important thing here is the writing itself, not memory mining. Let the writing come, watch it emerge on the page. Let it come without assessment or judgement. You’re letting your imagination roam, you’re awakening your creativity - not trying to recall the exact details of an event.

A fourth type of exercise I use is to write letters. When I write a letter as part of my writing exercise, I’m not doing it to send it to someone. Most of the time I don’t even finish the letters I write as part of my writing practice. That’s not the point here. When I write letters like this the activity is about the writing practice, not the result. I may come back to a letter later if I decide I want to send it but that’s a different activity, not part of my writing exercise. And it’s a rare occurrence for me. Sometimes I write letters to myself. They’re actually the most fun for me and sometimes quite helpful. But whether I’m writing to another person, or about a situation, or to myself, I always end up in a clearer place than when I started and I feel better about whoever or whatever I was writing to and about. 

And, finally, there are the mornings when the dark clouds have descended and I don’t feel like getting up at all. Mornings when I wake up full of the blue meanies - what’s the point of doing this stuff at all? This isn’t going anywhere; it’s not producing anything. I don’t have anything to show for it. I’m not getting as good as the writers I read. I’m not even trying to. And so on, and so on. Days like this need a special type of exercise. These are the times when my philosophy of life, my faith in creation, is tested; the times when I have to rely on my experience and my memory. This is when I remember the other fraught and desperate times in my life. When life seemed like walking a tightrope across a bottomless chasm. And the only way across was to focus on the next step, and then the next one. Looking anywhere else, paying attention to anything else, would mean a slip and catastrophe.

I learned how to focus on taking the next step, which is usually the only thing that is clear in these moments anyway. How that was the way through and across. And I bring that to these times. Or, I remember from my work experience that success doesn’t come from someone emerging from the crowd as a hero , taking charge, and leading everyone to triumph. I learned that success comes from teams of ordinary people doing many small things together and then doing the next batch of small things needed. Creation, as the saying goes, unfolds like a slow stream making its way to the ocean, finding its way deliberately around obstacles, meandering at times but never stopping. This has been the true experience of my life, despite the multitudinous representations of the “Great Man” syndrome in articles, books, and films.

Most of all, in times like this, it's my routine that gets me through. I do the same thing I've done on other mornings when I felt better. Sooner or later the practice pulls me through the clouds. I catch on to something that takes my attention. And by the time I’m finished writing my feelings are in a different place.

One other thing I wanted to mention here is that sometimes I find myself getting carried away by my thoughts and doing no writing. My mind gets carried away. Sometimes it’s with thinking about what I’m writing, instead of actually writing. Or the current idea provokes a stream of other things I think I’ll want to write about, while not actually writing anything in that moment. And I find myself coming back to an empty page having done no writing. When my mind is racing like this, I write down the first thought that comes up. Then I allow myself five thoughts and write down the next thought that comes up. Gradually, this gets me into a rhythm of writing for that practice session. 

We all have these days, most of us anyway. And isn’t it a wonderful thing to have? A superfluity of life really. This is just one way of dealing with it. Experiment and find your own. Don’t worry if it feels like a trick. The key point is to get back to your writing exercise. That is the key point in any of these exercises. This is your writing practice. You’re coming to practice, to exercise your mind. And any kind of writing is exercise. We can rediscover that magic every day. That is the real trick.