Writing Exercises

Writing is tiring, no two ways about it. Non-writers tend to roll their eyes in that ‘yeah right’ way when you say that. But they should try a stint of a couple of hours of creative writing or blogging. They’ll soon see!

It’s not just the concentration that can be fatiguing, there’s the physical side too. I was intrigued as to how many calories an hour’s intensive blogging might burn off, so I did some digging around on the Net. The act of typing or writing burns around 100 calories an hour. However, I’m sure that if you hit the backspace button as often as I do, that burns a lot more! And thinking takes energy too. I’ve come across estimates of everything from 20 to 100 calories an hour for exercising the old grey matter. So that’s up to 200 calories consumed in sixty minutes’ work, the same as housework or yoga. What’s more, the chances are you’re up and down during that time, looking something up in the dictionary, digging out your notes, catching the runaway goat before it eats the lilac bush – again. Or does that last one only happen here?

So it’s OK to feel bushed after being creative. But I find that when I’m in full-throttle writing mode, I can’t sleep, no matter how tired I am. My brain won’t turn off. I’m having a bad dose of insomnia at the moment, mainly for that reason. I’m up and down all night, raiding the fridge, making cups of herbal tea, even sitting in the garden listening to the nightjars. Which is lovely, although the not-sleeping is aggravating.

But I wouldn’t give up my writing for anything.