So, here is a warmup for my discussion of ‘warmup’.
It’s a quick brain dump [not my favorite term, by the way] to get some ideas rolling.
It might be a typed list, since I’m currently [obviously] on my laptop, but it might evolve into a mind map in my codex.
But it’s something that gives me a starting point and it dodges the ol’ blank white paper/blank idea-less mind syndrome.
Warmup
Get ideas flowing
Don’t stop yourself. Don’t edit yourself.
Get some momentum. It can help you achieve flow.
Sometimes it takes a few minutes, 50 or more words, but it is rarely a waste of time.
It often clears your mind of other distractions.
It reminds you that you have ‘shown up for work’, so that’s a reward in itself.
It just hit me that ‘warmup’ is such a nebulous unclear term that writing about it can be a little dry, but I’m forging ahead.
It loosens your muscles and it reminds you that, by warming up, you are striking out against ‘perfectionism’, so that’s another reward.
This is a practice that yields plenty of benefits and I think it’s worth making it a ‘habit’, one that shakes the cobwebs out of your brain. Right now, I feel like sketching two brains…one filled with cobwebs and then one—after warming up—with just a few wisps of cobweb.
I’m still going on this warmup about warmups. This is almost getting weird, isn’t it?
As I write this, I’m starting to get a vision of what an ideal warmup session might look like. It might well include a fresh cup of coffee and both analog and digital tools nearby. I wouldn’t want to be cooped up in a windowless room. And I would want some creativity books [a future post] nearby if I do get stuck. And I might even make a poster with some warmup criteria and prompts listed to keep me on track. Yeah, I like this. And I wouldn’t have reached that poster idea unless I had reached that ‘ideal warmup session’ idea, which had resulted from the previous 250 words.
Wow…what a warmup session on ‘a discussion of warmups’.
Henry Miller’s 11 Commandments of Writing
Word Inventions 