Writing Exercises Are GREAT, and You Need to Do One Right Now!

The land took a great breath, teetering on a knife’s edge. The wind, like a great wave in a mighty sea swelled to a roar as it ripped through the treetops. They bowed to the wind as if it were king. Great fat raindrops were swept in by it. Lightning shattered the darkness, casting a great light for mere moments. Rolling thunder cascaded seconds behind. The power was a tangible thing, as if it could be harnessed if such a being existed to wield it. You want to be a writer, don’t you? Then face down the majesty of a storm. Stare into it and describe what you see. What you feel. Breathe through it. Connect with the earth. Take in every ounce of that raw, unchecked fury Mother Nature lashes you with. I’ve seen God, in the torrents of rain He has sent slashing towards the earth with each wave of His hand. The sky stays lit with the relentless, crackling lightning as if for a moment daylight has broken through the clouds, splitting apart the sky from the unrelenting power. Marred with a purple light, as if wounded, the ground lights up below in a continual pulse. With a low, rumbling growl of protest, the storm pushes onward across the land. The ghost of its power still lingers, settling over the earth. The frogs chirp with mirth at their now sodden woods.

It was an early June night. My husband was taking one of his rare naps. He always looks like a deflated balloon when he does that, and I decided to busy myself with work. The telltale rumble of thunder, however, ruined my plans.

I am a lover of storms, but ever since I was a child and our old geriatric computer got fried by one, I’m a little more paranoid than most. Despite two separate power strips and frequent saves, I still won’t work on my computer during a storm. And we have more than plenty of them here in the southeastern US.

And in retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t end up risking it, because the power went out pretty early on in the storm.

I wondered then, what I should do while I waited for the power to come back on. And then I had a brilliant idea.

I stepped onto our little porch, and I looked out into the darkness. I opened my notes app on my phone, and I started writing. I described everything I saw, felt, heard. In that instant, raw and unedited, I flexed my writing muscles.

It was a mystical experience, unlike any rush I’d had before writing.

And I recommend everybody who writes to give it a go. It doesn’t have to be a storm. These writing exercises could be done for nearly any event or experience. A bus ride. A nature walk. A bonfire.

Describe what’s happening. Describe the sounds you hear, the things you smell, the feelings associated with it. Don’t google words or edit it as you go or go back and read it and overthink if it sounds good.

Simply be. Simply write.

This writing exercise got me excited and motivated to write. It is a magnificent bridge between the mundane world we live in and creative writing. Anyone who writes fiction knows it is a craft that comes from the very soul, and something you are most likely creating from the ground up. Every setting, character, scene, and narrative is coming from your mind. Whereas when you write about something happening in front of you, it can be much easier to describe. It’s a step above even trying to recall something and writing it down. Our minds are fallible, and small details can be missed when we try and think back on something that has happened. In this instance, you can capture every single detail in real time. Not only that, a scene can even be repurposed for your own fiction writing. Why not use a real-life scene (with a few changes if necessary) in a similar scene for your fiction? As if you needed another reason, it also serves as a nice test for the extent of your vocabulary and it can become clear where your writing might need to improve/where it is strongest/any repeat vocab, etc.

10/10 would recommend, give it a try!

Happy writing!