My new writing tool is a jump rope.
All winter I’ve struggled with the fact that if I sit still for an hour or two I get cold, and I happen to have a profession which requires sitting still a lot. My space heater helps, as does getting up to do the dishes, but generally I would get uncomfortable and my writing would suffer.
Then I read a writing blog somewhere about the importance of keeping blood flowing to the brain. This made perfect sense, and combined nicely with the solution to another problem of mine: a lack of cardio exercise in the winter.
Hence the jump rope. I now pause my writing whenever I need to think and jump rope for a minute or two. This gives me time to puzzle out a new solution to my writing problem, warms me up nicely, gets the blood recirculating quickly, and over the course of a morning spent writing, adds up to a decent amount of cardio exercise.
With my jump rope I will now be better able to complete my novel and will (finally) be able to compete with the girls on the playground.
Comments 3
Oh, that’s such a good idea! I just met with a personal trainer for the first time (ever) an hour ago, and we discussed the, uh, sedentary nature of the writing life. Living in Minnesota doesn’t help–six months of the year, the weather rather precludes extended outdoor exercise. But a jump rope. I could do that.
Posted 04 Mar 2010 at 11:29 pm ¶Here’s a tip: Invest in a good chair! If, when I visit this summer, you still have those horrible metal folding chairs I will promptly direct you to the nearest discount Home Goods store. I am even going to research where the nearest one is. I NEVER understood how you could write sitting in those things, let alone in the cold winter! And in your boxers half the time too, right? You’re crazy.
Or, you and Doug could just move to California…
Posted 05 Mar 2010 at 12:37 am ¶I’ve already gotten rid of those chairs, thank you. I now have a very comfortable office chair. And I do not write in my boxers. At least not in the winter.
Posted 05 Mar 2010 at 4:18 pm ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 1
[...] Perhaps because I’ve been closely following TH Mafi’s hilarious Querypolitan, I’ve been stricken by the bug to write about the intersection of physical fitness and a writing career, which I very briefly touched on here. [...]
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