Feeding Your Writing Brain
Source: https://marlaszwast.medium.com/feeding-your-writing-brain-43c8a3fc37d3
Date: Jul 13, 2018
Feeding Your Writing Brain
How to Take Care of That Organ that Has All the Ideas
4 min read
Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash
Writing can be energizing. It can also be exhausting. It takes a great deal of energy to write, because the brain uses up to 20% of the total energy our body uses every day. If we want to keep writing, we need to keep feeding that massive thing on top of our heads.
I want to start with a shout-out to Benjamin P. Hardy because his article has inspired me to write this.
Also, if at any point this article sounds preachy, I apologize, the preaching is for me (to myself), the practical tips and inspiration are for you. (Yes, I just admitted that writers write first for themselves and second for their audience, but hey, I could be the only one who reads this, so I might as well make one person happy.)
Caring for our brain requires four basic things.
1. Oxygen
2. Nutrition
3. Information
4. Love
Is it possible that much of writers block, is, at the foundation, a lack of one of these things?
Oxygen
Breathing just ain't enough, peeps. We need to move, to actually go use those bodies that our brains reside in, we need to move so much that we sweat and run out of breath. That is the only way to get enough oxygen up into that wondrous writing brain. I am not going to write a whole article about this, but if you need to read one before you are inspired enough to get out and move, here is a recent favorite of mine by Vic Napier.
Nutrition
Well, I mean, coffee does help, but our brain needs a bit more than caffeine to function optimally. It uses up a lot of food, so if you write, you may need to eat more super foods, and no, you can't get skinny from writing, and no, your fat reserves will not magically be able to give your brain the nutrition it is craving. Again, I am not going to write a whole article about that here. I am going to link to the article by Benjamin P. Hardy, because he gives a helpful list of foods that are especially great for brain health. If you need to improve here, write the list down, tape it onto a kitchen cupboard or wall, and read it before you eat. Just try to make sure you are getting some of these foods into your body every day. Don't over-complicate it by buying new recipes books, throwing things out of your pantry, or beating up on yourself for not being a nutrition guru. Pick one thing every day and eat it.
Information
This is why writers need to read. First, it teaches us about form and structure and syntax and voice. Second, reading bad writing teaches us how we don't want to sound. Third, reading puts a lot of information into our brain. This not only feeds our brain, but it also inspires us with new ideas. Do you have trouble thinking of things to write? Read more. Your brain will love you for it and bless you with more ideas than you can hope to get down in your lifetime.
Love
And now we are almost falling into abstraction. So far we have been very concrete; you need to move more, eat more nutrient dense foods, and read, but love? How can you just up and get love every day? Isn't that dependent on someone else? Don't you have to constantly psycho-analyze everyone's motives to know if they love you? Well, no, you don't. You can just take a hug as hug. A little bit of love. This, I suppose can be broken down into real-world practicality by saying we need to invest in our relationships. Every day we should have a conversation with some one. A husband, a parent, a child. And hug people. We tend to make relationships with our loved ones abstract, but they can be quite tangible. Talk together, play together, work together. If you can't find any people to love you, get a dog? (If you can love the dog.) I am sort of joking, but not completely, dogs teach us humans a lot about love.
So next time you are feeling drained instead of fulfilled by your writing, take care of this brain list. Sweat. Eat. Read. Love. Then write down all the ideas that come flooding in and enjoy the energy as you write them out into completion and release them into the world.