The fastest way to become a proficient content creator is to make writing part of your daily routine.
When you write habitually, you open up a channel that allows the ideas in your head to more easily become a physical expression of those ideas. You go from thoughts to words on a page faster. Your writing improves.
And because you’re better at writing, you enjoy it more.
And because you enjoy it more, you write more often.
It’s a happy circular pattern of, “Doing more, which leads to doing better, which leads to doing more.”
But none of the above helps you when you’ve fired up your computer only to find yourself in a stare down contest with that frightening little vertical bar that inspires dread in the best of us.
The cursed cursor.
From here on out, you may find yourself looking forward to being taunted by that blinking bar. Because you’re about to learn how to dive in and warm up your “writer’s brain” with fun techniques that will get your fingers moving and your ideas flowing.
What’s the purpose of a writer’s warm up?
A writer’s warm up is a fun exercise that prepares you for the work ahead. It’s designed to help you leap past any writer’s block you may feel and get you started writing quickly and easily.
The goals?
- To get your fingers on your keyboard and typing.
- To begin getting your writer’s brain in gear.
- To write — with no judgment and no expectation of an outcome.
The point of a writer’s warm up is not to create publishable material. It’s to spend a short time getting yourself ready to create publishable work.
You don’t need to spend a lot of time on these warm ups: 10–15 minutes should do it.
Remember: no judgment and no expectation of results. Let your fingers do the thinking, not your mind.
Ready?
1. Write a letter to the six-year-old you
There you were, all shiny-eyed and fresh-faced, heading off to the big world of school, friends, and life outside your home. Everything was new and different.
If only you knew then what you know now. All those hard-earned lessons life taught you along the way.
Of course, you wouldn’t want to pass all of them along to six-year-old you. You don’t want to scare yourself!
But if you could lean down and look six-year-old you in the eyes and speak a few words of wisdom, what would you say?
Write that.
2. Answer a question friends or family have asked about your business
Remember the first time you told someone about your new website and they clearly didn’t understand your business?
You were diplomatic about it then. You explained what you do in simple terms you knew they’d comprehend.
But what if you could do it over?
What if you were given a soapbox to stand on where you could go on and on about what motivates you to work so hard, why you’re passionate about the work you do, and how you plan to change the world with your work?
Write that.
3. Put your blog categories in front of you and brainstorm ideas
Remember back when you set up your blog categories?
You thought you had a good idea of the topics you planned to cover. Over time, though, you may have found your content drifting into other areas of interest. You may have forgotten what your original intentions were.
In this exercise, you’re not going to write a piece of content to fit one of your categories. You’re going to dig out your categories, put the list in front of you, and simply brainstorm content topics that will fit into the categories you haven’t touched in a long time.
Don’t write content … write content ideas.
What content ideas can you come up with for categories you’ve ignored for a while?
Write that.
4. Troll your comments and write to one reader
If there’s one thing a lively comments section is good for, it’s the reliable intelligence you can gain from simply paying attention to the comments your readers write.
They’ll let you know if:
- They understand your point.
- Your content created more questions than answers.
- They want to know more about your content topic.
- Their situation is different and they don’t understand how to apply your information.
For this exercise, look for a particularly passionate comment. Write back to the person.
Remember, this won’t be published. If you could say anything back to the commenter, what would you say?
Write that.
5. Write a “Dear John” letter to the person who doesn’t fit your market
One of the first and most difficult decisions we must make when we’re marketing a business is to decide who we want to target with our products and services — and who we don’t want to target.
Intentionally choosing a group to appeal to and a group who you don’t want as customers is crucial. Why waste time attracting prospects you don’t want as customers?
Make no mistake — this step is tough. It’s not easy to walk away from potential sales.
That’s where this warm up can help.
Write a “Dear John” break-up letter to the people you don’t want to serve.
Remember, no one will see this. This warm up will help you reinforce your concept of who you serve and who you don’t want to serve.
What will you say to the person you really don’t want to sell to?
Write that.
6. Write in present tense describing what your life is like after achieving a big goal
Do you have a big dream you’re working to achieve?
In this warm up, you’re going to imagine you’re already there. You’re going to write about what life is like now that your dream is a reality.
Spend 10–15 minutes describing what your life is like in the present tense now that you’ve achieved your big goal. Write in first person, too, so you feel the experience first-hand.
Put yourself in the shoes of the future you. What is life like now that you’ve finally achieved your big dream?
Write that.
7. Let go and free write
If the above ideas don’t work for you, or if you’ve done them all and want to try something else, consider a free writing session.
Free writing is a technique where you put your fingers to your keyboard and type whatever comes to mind. It’s truly “thinking with your fingertips.” It’s a way to get past any blocks or resistance you may feel about writing on a particular day.
To have a productive free writing session, follow these guidelines:
- Set a timer.
- Type whatever comes to mind, even if you start with “I really don’t feel like writing today.”
- Do not look back at what you’ve written and don’t edit anything you write.
- Aim for speed and don’t expect anything usable to come from it.
Remember, no one will see the gobbledygook this warm up produces. The end result is not the point: it’s the act of writing that will make a difference.
What will come out of your fingertips when you place them on your keyboard?
Write that.
What do you do to warm up your writer’s brain?
Build your writing momentum by getting your fingers moving and your brain in gear using the seven warm ups above.
Do you have a favorite technique for warming up your writer’s brain? Share it with me in the comments!
Reader Comments (32)
I personally am never stuck and don’t need this, but for most other people I know, these ideas are pure gold. I have taught them in my corporate training seminars on technical writing with good results reported by the students.
Thank you, Bob.
I tend to go straight into free writing mode if I’m feeling stuck. (Just need to remember to delete that “I really don’t feel like writing today” first line).
Pamela–
Great ideas. I call sitting in front of the computer not knowing what to write, “Blank Screen Syndrome”.
Like vitamins, developing your writing habit and collecting ideas help avoid it.
I also love your “Dear John” letter approach. The Sales Lion, Marcus Sheridan calls it “Who don’t you want as a customer?” (BTW, it’s one of the strongest converting posts on his site!)
Happy marketing,
Heidi Cohen
Very cool, Heidi. I haven’t seen that post yet and will have to go look for it on Marcus’s site.
That “who don’t I want to serve” question is tough for people to answer, so I stuck it in here as a no-pressure prompt to help people think about it.
Pamela,
This list is brilliant! I find a lot of writing prompts to be rather ‘blah’ but I appreciate the relevance to blogger. The ‘Dear John’ letter has to be my favorite here. There is no doubt that I will use this. Thank you.
JIM
Glad you enjoyed it, Jim!
Great tips, Pamela. Seems likely that doing these exercises over time will increasingly lead to clicking “publish” – as posts, sales copy, or even book chapters, eh?
;-D
You’ve got that right, Tom!
The more you write … er … the more you write!
I knew there must have been such a thing as a cursed cursor! That explains a lot.
Love the idea of writing to your 6 year old self. However, I think I would literally frighten the poor (but cute and loveable) lad to death.
Would love to read some other peoples letters to their little six year old versions.
It’s such a pivotal moment in our lives, right? Six years old and all the world’s a stage.
Great post!
Personally, I found that writing answers about writing on Quora worked wonders for me. Teaching others what I know and sharing insights on writing rekindle my spark and usually open that blockage after answering only one or two questions.
Try it if you’re ever feeling really, really stuck – it may just help you too!
Interesting, Selena. I haven’t done anything at all on Quora but it sounds like a fascinating way to get your writing brain in gear. Thanks for sharing the idea.
Such great ideas! As any writer, freelance or otherwise will tell you, getting in front of the computer is the toughest part of writing. It’s only when we get in front of the screen and just let the fingers fly that we can see great results. Thank you for sharing!
Dear Pamela:
Wonderful topic and suggestions. I especially like your allusion to what I call a “Judgment Free Zone” where you can write what you want to without worrying about likes, shares, and metrics.
For 3 years, my Judgment Free Zone has been a friend’s weekly newsletter where I’m introducing the basics of content marketing to a shrinking niche where few have adopted it. (Yes, it *is* a niche!) The benefits are I enjoy the ritual and the freedom to choose and express the topics. But, more important, I’m increasingly using these posts as the first drafts of longer posts I submit elsewhere!
Hint: I number the posts as a series, and now have over 144 ready to be adapted, reformatted, and reused!
A final idea that often works for me and my clients: I just pick up the phone and call a friend and say: “This is what I’m trying to do, but I can’t find the words. Can I take 10 minutes of your time to try to describe my project?” At the end of that time, the yoke of frustration has been broken–whether or not I recorded the call.
Again, thank you for a great topic!
Love that “phone a friend” idea, Roger.
Once in a while I say to my ever-patient husband, “Would you mind if I just talk about something for a few minutes?” It’s strange how simply verbalizing a problem helps unlock ideas (and words to describe them) in a way that plain thinking doesn’t.
This was just what I wanted to warm up my writing gear. The last time I updated my blog was 7 days ago. I’ve really been BUSY doing……NOTHING.
I really need to get writing now.
thanks Pamela, for the helpful tips…
Pamela,
Great ideas! I used to write very fast and precise in my native language (Spanish) but now that I started writing in English I became slow and now I spend hours in front of the screen thinking what to write.
Definitely, I will use some of this ideas.
Thanks,
Bianca
Wow…this is amazing. Warm up’s for writing. The elaborate explanation makes the deal for me. True…when our fingers jump to typing, ideas flow more freely and then we end up writing without stopping at the blinking cursor.
Writing a letter to six year old self is similar to giving advice to younger self trend.
This could be even an entire blog post altogether.
Apart from the warm up one would also get to evaluate self with writing to self. It would open up the inner human, decrease doubt and we will understand ourselves much better.
Explaining about the business in writing will do much more than warm up for writing.
It will make ourselves clearer in our mind about our business. What we think our business model is, are we working towards it and are we making change happen.
Yes…the categories of our blog do help in brainstorming content ideas. We can look up to our competitor’s blog too for different categories and blog post ideas.
I loved how you emphasized on writing content ideas. It would help us to expand on it later. For now, we can jot down weeks or maybe months of blog post.
Ha..ha..ha…comments.
Comments are the source of warm ups like you explained. It is also the source of content which would go viral. Analyzing comments, we can find ideas and contents which readers want more of it.
Then we can go ahead and answer their queries, delivering value and connecting too.
The best warm up and breaking the writer’s block is to write something totally out of your niche. Since we haven’t exhausted on the niche, we can easily write up on anything ranging from fashion to relationships to story telling.
Sometimes we can incorporate trends in our niche.
I read in “The Secret Book”, feeling success by imagining it helps our mind to accelerate our hard work. And as a side kick, it is fun and reality check too writing about success which we are chasing.
The best free writing is to race against the timer. Whenever I tried free writing without any timer, I failed to write even 100 words.
When I set up timer, (20 minutes anyone), I found I was able to write more and it was fun. Sometimes I churn out epic contents like that.
Yes…yes..I have my warm ups technique.
I comment on other blog’s. When ever I feel like I unable to get past few words, I hop to other amazing blogs and comment.
When I do that and come back, I end up creating articles meaningful and thought provoking.
Beautiful post. Stay awesome!!!
Pamela:
I’m an odd one I think because I have a million ideas and write a lot of starter phrases and outlines and a couple of paragraphs for “brilliant” content, but then I never get around to completing them with a full out writing exploration. Maybe I’m lost in research too much because I’m often working on more than one article or project at a time and, of course, with everything absorbed–read, webinars, etc. that I attend, and all the information (overload)–just gives me more and more ideas. It’s almost like I need to lock myself away and devote myself to doing a writing project (and only that) for as long as it takes to complete. For me, a good piece of work takes many forms, edits, and time to do well, but ideas flow like a fountain. What is wrong with me? I’m opposite from the norm it seems! Thanks for more useful Pamela insights. Sue-Ann
Nothing “wrong” at all, Sue-Ann!
It sounds to me like you know exactly what you need to do … buried in your comment is your solution. Maybe once you get used to that awesome feeling you get when you complete something, you’ll want to repeat it. 🙂
Great ideas here, Pamela. I especially like the letter to 6 year old me. And Dear John to a crappy client. ?
These prompts should help me avoid some of the pain of an empty brain mocked by a blinking cursor.
I’ve found the ‘old school’ pen to paper helps get the creative juices flowing. Just the kinesthetics of fluid motion prior to fully formed ideas jump starts the creative process for me. And I’m always pleasantly surprised with the outcome.
Great advice, Pamela! I like number 1 especially.
Thanks for sharing, Kevin. Glad to know you found some good ideas for your next pen-to-paper session. 🙂
Very good tips, Pamela. I have used #2 quite a bit with good effect. For me, it is one of the easiest ways to find inspiration on days when nothing is coming to mind.
Great ideas!
Hi Pamela,
Great, practical advice. Thanks for this post. A technique I like to use is to consider an activity or an object that initially seems completely unrelated to my blog and try to find something about that activity or that object which I can use as an analogy in a post or group of post.
For instance, you think about how you could fit an object, like a box of facial tissues, into an article on content marketing or content creation.
Achoo! Could you pass me a facial tissue please, Mike? 😉 (Great idea, BTW: very creative!)
Hi Pamela,
Thanks for sharing this awesome tips. Already I try to follow some of the tips in my routine life, but sometime how hard you try you can’t help it cause its all about creativeness and passion that you need for your writing.
Very great tips i have jotted down the main points. i always fumbling for tips and ideas which can cultivate my mind for next great Post . Thank you Pamela, i really enjoyed it.
I love your writing prompts. Any suggestions where I can look online for additional prompts that are similar to the ones you included in the blog? Something short that can be written in 10 minutes?
Thanks!
Marcela, if you’re on a Mac or an Apple device, there’s an app called Day One which provides daily prompts.
Thanks.
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