How to stimulate that writing muscle of yours....

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...and, please, get your minds out of the gutter on this one.

I ask you all now, what helps you get your writing stimuli going? I can't quantify what gets mine going, but I am sure it involves lots of drinking of tea and/or coffee.

The three C's

coffee

cigars

cognac

Yes, coffee or tea, pen and paper, peace and quiet. Congac makes me sleepy.

Also, writing dreams first thing in the morning or just writing first thing in the morning (with above conditions, ideally) and letting whatever is in there just tumble out without censure.

That's what the cigars and coffee are for ...

I usually start with a five to ten minute period of daydreaming, then I get out my notepad and continue writing.

I know a handful of online writers who make a playlist of all their favorite songs, then listen to that playlist whenever they run out of inspiration.

Wow, my methods are just literally SAD:
- Solidarity
- Activism
- Depression

That's why when I write, unless it's for school, it has a political twist or would put you in a depressive slump.

Interesting...... we can amazing stuff when depressed.

Best things for writing are what Faulkner suggested as the essential equipment for any author, a sort of variation on the three C's:

"The tools I need for my work are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey."

I will say, though, that I find I write with far greater fluidity and speed if I swap out the food with coffee.

Listening to sad music also helps out times.

Mostly I'm doing college papers. If I need to break a mental log jam I just have to free wright. Just spew whatever comes to mind onto my word processor with no concern for grammar.

I write music, but the same principle applies:

Write. Sit down and force yourself to write something for a set amount of time, no matter how crap it is. Eventually you'll get into the flow of things and start producing something decent.

It's like running. If you don't do it very regularly, you get out of shape and it's harder to get back into it. This means that sometimes you have to force yourself to write, even if you don't feel like it.

So weird you write that, I was about to write that running really helps my writing! They're really similar- when I was at uni, my tutor lent me Haruki Murakami's book 'What I Talk About When I Talk About Running' which is AMAZING and really changed the way I looked at with writing and running. I'm now doing a PhD in creative writing and training for a marathon, it really is an inspirational book. When I started a poetry module at uni, I couldn't write poems and didn't really 'get' what a poem was but running stops you from fixating on it as a problem and relaxes your brain so you can write more easily.

Sometimes I start writing and cannot stop. Then after a few weeks or months I stop and cannot start again.

Usually I can feel it coming. I have an idea that builds, gets vivid and then I have to write it. It can be easy if I am willing to write anything and am not only writing because I think it will be read someday.

I often start by listening to instrumental music, mostly prog-rock/metal, as long as it is melodic enough. I pick some of the riffs and melodies I like, and randomly put words with them. I keep phrases I'm satisfied with, and build the rest around that.
Sometimes, there are some words I like that jump out. English is not my native language, but I still tend to write in it. There are still plenty of very common words I don't know of though, and the phonetics often intrigue me. I build around these kinds of words as well.

Most importantly though, I have to actively counter any self-censoring. I'm usually very unhappy with work I just wrote, and tend to erase it for this. But if I revisit it, say, a week thereafter, I often have different views upon it. I guess what I'm trying to say is; don't be afraid of failure, nor too much of a nay-saying critic.