Looking for ways to boost your creative writing? Maybe you feel like you are always writing the same type of words and sentences over and over again? Either way, using some creative writing exercises is a great option.

Here are 7 of the top ways using writing exercises can improve YOUR creative writing:

1. Expand your “Writer’s Toolkit”.

The more you use a variety of different techniques and exercises, the more tools you have in your writer’s toolbox, ready to put into action when you need them. You wouldn’t ask a carpenter to build a closet with his own hands. It has specific tools that it uses. And as a writer, you can develop your own special toolkit of techniques to help you write more easily.

2. You open your mind more to inspiration.

When you have the attitude that every part of every idea must come from you with absolutely no influence from anyone else, a great source of creative inspiration closes in. By using writing exercises, you realize that with a more open mind, all your creativity needs to get started, and to continue, is a little boost of inspiration to start producing amazing work.

3. Learn to develop your own writing exercises.

As you got used to using a number of different exercises, you naturally began to develop your own variations by adding a bit here or making an adjustment there. With experience, you will develop many of your own ways to write better and more easily, requiring little use of any writing exercises.

4. You give your creativity channels to flow.

Imagine that you have a garden in which you are growing your own products. But the only water he has is a tap in the next field. There is no shortage of water, but to be useful, you need to develop an irrigation system so that the water flows into your vegetables. Creative writing exercises provide a similar system for you to channel all your raw ideas and creativity into something meaningful.

5. Reduce the pressure to write important and complex works.

It can be easy to get stuck when you’ve embarked on a large complex writing project. By using writing exercises, you can take a break, give yourself a new perspective, and the jolt of energy you need to get on with your main work, reducing the pressure on yourself.

6. You give your creativity permission to reshape what is already there.

In truth, nothing is being created out of, well, nothing. All creativity needs an idea or direction to start. Use creative writing exercises to provide that initial seed and watch your creativity grow from it, over and over again.

7. Build your confidence by writing in a variety of ways.

No matter how proficient you are as a writer in a particular area, it is good practice to experiment and grow in other areas. Use creative writing exercises to try out different types of writing that you may not have come across before, and watch your confidence increase as you experiment more and more. You can even find new favorite ways of writing that you never knew existed.

These are just 7 of the top reasons creative writing exercises can improve your writing to new levels.