5 tips for a writing detox

I’m attempting to do a food detox for a week. That means I’m cutting out dairy, meat, caffeine, sugar, alcohol and gluten from my diet.

I hope I don’t keel over.

At the detox class I attended, the instructor warned us that we might get cranky, develop acne or welts, go through withdrawal and become depressed.

Splendid! Sign me up.

I figured if my whole body is going through detox, maybe my brain could, too.

Here are five detox rules for writing I made up, while drinking my kale-filtered water-cucumber-spinach-banana-blueberry-chia seed smoothie. (It’s an acquired taste.)

Cut the sugary stories

What you take in, you’ll put out. That means it’s time to stop leafing through Weekly World News at the grocery store checkout line or reading 50 Shades of Grey before you go to bed. All those verbal sugars and preservatives aren’t going to make you a better writer.

Your writing needs more nutrients. Don’t forget about Hemingway, On Writing Well, or any great literature or literary figure that inspired you. Not knowing who Taylor Swift is dating might make you antsy, but now is the time to challenge yourself: Take a writing seminar, mentor a young writer at your office, and start writing in your journal.