PRIMING THE PUMP
My friends and family can’t understand it. They think that my brain just engages anytime my fingers get near a keyboard since I have written hundreds of articles and over two dozen books for a variety of publishers. But occasionally, I will sit down to write on a topic or work on my novel and nothing happens. The words seem all jammed up inside my head. On such days, writing is hard work. Priming the pump helps.
What do I mean by priming the pump? For me, it means reading a book about my chosen topic, listening to music that relates to my topic, or doing research to get me thinking about the subject. If that doesn’t work, I move my body, literally.
Instead of stressing on not being able to produce words on the page, I get up and do something to shift the energy–wash the dishes, feed the chickens, walk in nature, do yoga, or tend my plants–in short, anything that takes me away from the work and gives my mind time to cogitate on what it is I want to write. It’s allowing the mind time to figure out how to tell the story before you actually sit down to type it.
