What have nutrition and exercise
to do with
writing fiction?

They have everything to do with it! Quite simply, the healthier you are the easier it will be to write your fiction. This is because you’re using your brain to write, and the better you look after it, the more it will serve you (in all ways, not just writing). The old GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) motto definitely applies here.

The rest of the information on this website will work even if you don’t following the suggestions below, but it will all come together much better if you do do it. I’m making no secret of how difficult the writing path is, and how much of writing success is out of your hands. But here’s something you can actively do to put the odds more on your side.

If you follow these steps you will see your writing improve as your brain ‘muscle’ gets stronger. And of course, this advice will impact on your whole self in positive ways too – it’s about much more than the writing.

Here are the suggestions:  

• Exercise aerobically for at least 20 minutes to half an hour a day.
• I know, I know. It’s boring. And you’re already under time pressure with all the writing you have to do. But – quite apart from all the other health benefits – your writing will truly benefit from this. Your brain has very high demands for oxygen, and the more oxygen you give it, the better it will work.

  Writing is a pretty sedentary thing anyway, so it’s important to get your body moving in some way. And besides, you don’t have to walk instead of write – walk and ‘write’. Okay, you can’t physically write. But you can plan and imagine and plot your stories while you exercise, and simply transcribe when you get home. (You probably will get a few funny looks, and perhaps a reputation as that mad one who mutters to herself as she walks around – I know I have! But we have to suffer for our art!)

• Eat a mixture of seeds each day.
• Our brain really needs the essential fats Omega 3 and Omega 6, and one of the best sources is seeds.

  Half fill a dark airtight container with linseeds (also called flax seeds), and fill the other half with either sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds or sesame seeds (or indeed a combination of those three).

  Simply grind them in smallish quantities (enough for a week maybe) in a coffee- or nut-grinder and eat 1 tablespoonful of them each day, perhaps sprinkled on breakfast cereals. Store both the whole seeds and the ground seeds in the fridge. (Use a coffee grinder specifically for this purpose, to avoid the strong coffee taste in your seeds. They’re not expensive.)

• Avoid sugar.
• Sugar is so bad for us for so many reasons – I’m just beginning to realise just how bad it is. I mean, I knew it wasn’t great, but I’m learning that it leaches vitamins and minerals from the body, for example.

  But for our purposes as fiction writers, the problem with sugar is that it slows our thinking. It makes our thinking fuzzy just when it needs to be sharp.

  It also acts as a depressant. You might be surprised at how much of your negative thinking about the quality of your writing is to do with sugar putting you on a downer.

  Cutting out sugar is a big step, I know, but your body and your brain will thank you. And your writing will benefit.

  You can use EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) to get over cravings – just follow the instructions on the EFT page saying ‘Even though I really want this cake [or whatever] I choose to free myself from that desire’, and then tap the other points saying, ‘I want this cake so much!’. After a minute or so the craving will just fade away.

• Have a healthy diet.
• Obviously the better overall your diet is, the better. Limit or eliminate alcohol (alcohol is a sugar, so has the same problems as any other kind of sugar), cigarettes, tea and coffee; eat fresh fruit and veg … you know the score.

   

If you're serious about your fiction writing career, then you owe it to yourself to look after your main writing tool - your brain.

(You also deserve the best information and tools too!)

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