The past few weeks have been rather hectic for me and I’ve not had time to just chill out and let my mind wander. I think time spent tossing ideas about in our heads and mulling over them helps writers use their creativity effectively. We need time to ‘ruminate’.

‘Ruminate’ makes me think of my goats calmly watching me as they chew their cuds – they have all the time in the world as they settle to enjoy whatever they’ve most recently eaten. We, as writers, also need to take time to chew over our ideas.

‘Ruminate’ means to chew the cud and it also means to meditate or ponder and that’s important for writers. I think we need to take time before, as well as during, our writing to allow our ideas to sprout and grow. Ruminating is part of writing well.

I’ve written a more detailed post about this same topic on Writers Abroad today. You can find the whole post at: http://www.writersabroad.com/pt/Ruminate-To-Write/blog.htm