Just Dance!

by Jennifer Harlow

For once, my addictive personality has found something healthy to latch onto while clearing my head while writing. Anyway, my newest obsession comes in the form of...video game exercise. Yes, not only am I Benjamin Buttoning from adult to teenager as I get older, but apparently I'm switching genders too. My brothers played video games ALL THE TIME and still do, but I avoided them in favor of books and far too much television. Then my mother saw a commercial for Wii's Just Dance 3 and decided she wanted to use the game to lose weight. 

See, with the exception of my weight lifting bro Ryan, us Harlow's are a sedentary bunch. My idea of exercise is walking up to the fridge. My body is simply a vehicle for my brain, like a car. An Accura will get you were you're going just like a Porche, but the Accura requires less time wasting upkeep. I'm healthy as a horse. I like chocolate and hate sweating. So I have a few extra pounds, but I'm not getting my own TLC show The 1,000 Pound Writer, (though it would help book sales). Story short, I'm not athletic, never have been. I do have a gym membership and go twice a week for 1/2 an hour each time. I just hate every second of it. Even with the cable TV, book, and/or music I'm bored to tears on the Elliptical. Plus with two books to write a year, I don’t have the spare time to waste driving the fifteen minutes one way to the gym. So when Mom wanted to try the Wii alternative, I was on board.

Now I've gone overboard.

I do the majority of my writing at home at my small desk in my bedroom. I usually have the internet radio from iTunes on as I stare at the blank page trying to create. This gets very boring very quickly. I can usually sit still for at most two hours before I need to get up and move around. Before Just Dance3, Just Dance 2, Just Dance ABBA, Just Dance Michael Jackson, and Zumba 2 (told you I had a problem) I'd get a snack or play with the cat for respite. Now I do three songs (approx 10min), dancing around the room with a remote in my hand like an idiot. The thing is, it really helps. I can usually clear my mind long enough for the gremlins living in my brain to come up with what will happen next. Just getting away from the story and doing something mind numbing reboots the old brain. This usually happens at least four times a day, forty minutes of exercise five times a week. And the happy bi-product is not only do I continue writing at a good click, I'm apparently slimming a little. (I don't see it but my family say it's happening.) I don't know how long this obsession will last, but hopefully long enough for me to finish my next book and fit into my college jeans.

So Just Dance B****s!

What about you? When you hit a road block in the creative process, what do you do to plow through?

And here's the cover for the first Midnight Magic book, out 3/13! I love it.