I don’t know how the other writers on my list get warmed up before a session, but here’s an example from yesterday of what I tend to do:
Writer’s block is just the act of not writing. This pithy observation doesn’t offer a solution, but it sure sounds nifty. A blocked writer could get a lot of mileage out of it, repeating it like a mantra—not writing, not writing, not writing.
Interruptions are another rich source to mine. A thought or a sentence only flows as freely as the empty course of the page laid before it. Interruptions—be they momentary interjections from coffee shop servers as you’re trying to get your daily writing engine started or larger digressions brought by life wrenching your head around and forcing your concentration away from the free flow of ink across a paper landscape—these are the pebbles and boulders and Hoover-fricken Dams that stopper all that inspiration and muck up your headwaters something fierce.
I must pause now, for a big plate of bacon has been set before me. One must always pause for bacon.
Mmm. Bacon.
Right. Where was I? Oh yeah—the distractions that keep a writer from writing…
Mmm. More bacon.
There are other things: research, editing, re-reading, world-building. The business side of writing. But none of these are as tasty as bacon, so I don’t feel any great need to ruminate on them
Eggs and potatoes, they’re interesting enough, but even with hot sauce, they are what they are. There’s no sublime excess drawing me away from everything except devouring them mindlessly, and getting my fingers all greasy in the process.
No, bacon is my writers pitfall. Fatty, greasy, salty, unhealthy bacon. You just keep devouring it until it’s gone.
WoW… is kinda like a never-ending plate of bacon for me. I need to figure out ways to put a few pieces on my plate and then step away from the table.
Complete non-sequitor in response to the stimuli of my environment: I totally want to write a Lost/Gilligan’s Island crossover fanfic.
Right (Write? Wright?), back on track.
Tea.
It all comes back to tea with me. Tea does not distract. It centers. It soothes. It focuses. It warms the hands and the head, puts fire in the belly, and readies and steadies me for the work. I need to remember and apply this: bacon in moderation, tea in ubiquity.
Alright. Enough with the omphalaskepsicism. Time to segue into my fiction writing.
Alyc Helms 
Thank you for the link. I got through 1/2 of it on my lunch break, I’ll read the rest tonight. But I love ti so far. And Norman Mailer rocks my socks most days. 🙂
Thanks again.
I’m only 1/4 of the way in, but what he said about protesters essentially saying, essentially, “to hell with reason” frightened me because it rang so true. It is precisely what happened with the WTO came to Bloomington. The folks who wanted to be disruptive decided that their method of protest had to happen and they essentially cut out the voice of the large portion of the protestors who wanted to take an education/intellectual approach. A few voices will, effectively, shout out the multitude.
Here’s a little food for thought linking to New Democrats Online. As a political moderate, I think it’s a must read for liberals:
http://instapundit.com/archives/016914.php
~~T
*laughs a good deal and falls on floor*
This post is hilarious. And I can’t help feeling a little bit of misplaced pride in the rambly chaoticness of this post seeing as how Buggrit Millennium Hand and Shrimp! And bacon. Mmmm bacon.
-Crow
Also, blogs. *g*
I need to try tea, though, I’ve found that it melts every bit of imagination out of my head. The best tool for writing? Class. If I should be taking notes, I’m writing the best fic the world ever did see.
I escaped the blog maw for a while, but I seem to be slipping back towards it, like a big sarlaac pit of doom.
I also had the class thing, and I miss it. My other best thing is mornings when I have to go to work. I can’t wake up early and write before work, but I literally keep a journal nearby to jot down snippets that come to me as I’m racing through my morning, and I have to work to restrain myself from just getting in late everyday because I got derailed by a really cool sequence.
Blargh!
I do all my best thinking as I’m falling asleep, just deep enough where I can hardly muster the energy to roll over and write it down. I’d rather be a morning writer! I’m a morning person, and the brainwaves are flowing in the morning, but lately it doesn’t work out so well for me. Maybe when my morning routine is less crunchy.
If you want doom, I just got a dreamwidth. Noooo clue what to do with it.
*bows*
I am but a simple master of Putty of the World Breaking Style. It takes years of training, neurosis and overall silliness, but with great gremlin garrulousness comes great Millennium Hand and Shrimp.
You have come far young padawan, and I sense great power within you.
*pats head*
*leaves halibut*
*runs*
Whoo Hoo! Whoo Hoo! Whoo Hoo!
P.S. Sage Crow sez-and yes, pie is awesome
-Crow