Writing warm ups can be of enormous value for developing fodder for future in-depth explorations. This month, I depart from the standard syllabus I usually offer to offer, instead, a rich writing warm-up exercise I call “writing horses.”

This exercise, it may surprise you, has nothing whatsoever to do with actual horses, the animal, but is instead named after an exercise athletes sometimes do. The prompts may stimulate any genre, but can be especially helpful to someone interested in writing memoir.

After you’ve warmed your writing muscles up with these prompts and embellished and polished a piece of writing from them, be sure to submit to fws: writer’s idea box here!

If you’ve already subscribed to the Writer’s Idea Box, yay! If not, today’s the day! Join us. It’s completely free!