On great writing days, interesting, creative thoughts magically materialize in my head, and my brain effortlessly and instantly transforms my ideas into bold, beautiful prose.

But then there are those other days. Every now and then, I sit down in front of my keyboard and soon realize my brain is stuck in a mud hole. I mentally pull and tug, but I can’t free my mind from the muck.

After reading research suggesting that consuming certain foods enhances brain function, improves concentration, and boosts creativity, I decided to see for myself whether or not changing my diet and eating habits could improve my writing. And although I still have a bad writing day every now and then, the changes have been helpful.

Here are a few tips to keep your brain at peak performance and ready to write.

Feed Your Brain Regularly
Your brain prefers a steady stream of food and nutrients during the day. Eating smaller, more frequent meals and snacks distributes energy calories more evenly throughout the day and reduces erratic energy fluctuations. This, in turn, may improve your mental performance and allow those creative juices to flow more freely. And consider eating breakfast—studies have shown that including breakfast increases people’s performance at work.

Eat Lots of Brainy Foods
There are dozens of studies that have evaluated the correlation between eating certain foods and enhanced brain function. For the most part, research suggests that your brain’s day-to-day function can be boosted by including complex carbohydrates, foods with choline (a fat-like B vitamin found in eggs), foods rich in omega-3s (like fish), foods with low glycemic indexes, and some proteins in your diet.

Enhance your writing performance by eating the foods that will keep your brain running on high during the day—avocados, bananas, beans, beef (lean), blueberries, broccoli, brown rice, brussel sprouts, cantaloupe, cheese, chicken, collard greens, eggs, flaxseed oil, legumes, milk, oatmeal, oranges, peanut butter, peas, potatoes, romaine lettuce, salmon, sardines, soybeans, spinach, tuna, trout, turkey, walnuts, and yogurt.

Avoid Foods Resulting in Mental Fatigue
Staying away from certain foods and beverages may prevent your brain from stalling. Avoid sweetened soft drinks, candy, and highly processed treats (like cakes, pastries, and biscuits). These foods tend to produce temporary sugar highs followed by devastating sugar crashes. You also may want to steer clear of alcohol, products containing high fructose corn syrup, frostings, other high-sugar drinks, hydrogenated fats, junk foods, and white bread.

Keep Brain Cells Hydrated
Staying hydrated is another key to maintaining mental acuity and boosting brain performance. Low fluid intake can cause mild dehydration and make you feel mentally and physically fatigued. Most experts agree that adults should consume at least 6-8 cups of water each day, so rev-up your concentration and writing performance by sipping on water, non-caffeinated teas, or juices throughout the day.

Eat Moderate Amounts
According to the American Dietetic Association, a heavy meal right before an important affair may make a person feel mentally lethargic and unfocused—this is especially noticeable in the afternoon after you’ve consumed a large lunch. However, not consuming enough calories can starve your brain. Beat those afternoon writing slumps by consuming healthy, moderate-sized meals (not too large and not too small, but just right).

On Saturday, I fidgeted in an uncomfortable lounge chair for several hours as I waited for auto technicians to install a new water pump on our car. I’ve always loved to people watch, and there were plenty of odd people to watch at the dealership last Saturday, but I was more intrigued by the conversations these strangers were having with their friends and loved ones. I found myself eavesdropping all afternoon, which isn’t hard to do in today’s age of cell phones.

“Hey dude, can I borrow your truck next Sunday?” a 20-something guy asked one of his phone-a-friends. “I need it so that we can move all of Mike’s shit out of the trailer while his roommate is out of town next weekend.”

I listened to just one side of the five-minute conversation, yet, I know the whole story. I was not only interested in why Mike had to move his stuff out of the trailer so abruptly, but also, how the caller presented the situation to his friend with the truck—the words he used to describe the situation.

Conversations are the spice of life, and including conversations between two characters—or dialogue—adds a lot of value to writing projects. Dialogue helps break-up your paragraphs and reveals things about characters by showing rather than telling the reader.

Here are four tips for adding and improving dialogue.

1.  Make Your Dialogue Sound Authentic
Consider how your characters would actually say things, write it, and read it out loud. For example, my grandmother spoke with a specific, South Georgia dialect. She would have never said, “Nell and J.W. reside in Savannah in a lovely home.” No, Grandmother Lanier did not speak like the Queen of England. Instead, she would have said, “Nell and J.W. live in Savanner in a purty little house.”

2.  Choose Dialogue Tags Wisely
Dialogue tags are cues that tell the reader who is talking (i.e. Andy said, I replied, Audrey asked.) In most cases, said is easy and appropriate to use. I also use remarked and added occasionally, and if someone is remembering a moment from the past, I may use recalled. But it is important to exercise balance in using dialogue tags. Including too many sensational dialogue tags (i.e. laughed, murmured, whispered, hissed, asserted) is distracting to readers and looks like you are trying too hard.

3.  Remind the Reader of the Location
Even dialogue needs a break from time to time, and adding notes about the setting will add value to your writing. For example, if two men are hiking and having a conversation, you may want to add some scenery reminders like, Joe paused, bent down and pryed a jagged rock from the compacted clay with a stick or Michael stopped and studied the sign at the trailhead, moving his finger along the dotted lines that snaked through the canyon.

4.  Silence is Golden
In dialogue, sometimes silence is more powerful than words spoken. For example, if a father asks his daughter, “Were you with that Powell boy at the lake last night?” and the daughter doesn’t answer, then the reader knows the answer and is plunged in the conflict more effectively.

Strong dialogue is just one more interesting ingredient in the writer’s spice cabinet. Listen to the way people talk to each other and practice reconstructing these conversations on paper. Add a dash here and a dash there. It can enhance the flavor of your writing.

I’ve been told to write concisely—to shave unnecessary words from sentences and sever rambling sentences from paragraphs as if they were infected limbs.

Sure, I get it. A passage void of redundancies is leaner, cleaner, and easier for readers to digest, but is it as beautiful as it could be? Can you describe a sunset succinctly? And even if you can, should you? If writing is an art form—and I believe that it is, in addition to a form of communication—then sometimes the writer should take liberties to paint with his or her words.

Mark Twain was a master of words and stories, but he was not concise. Some of his descriptions linger on and on and on, but I don’t mind, because there is so much intelligence, wit, sensation, and imagination in his writing. Behold the master indulging us with his winding description of watermelons.

“I know how a prize watermelon looks when it is sunning its fat rotundity among pumpkin vines and ‘simblins;’ I know how to tell when it is ripe without ‘plugging’ it; I know how inviting it looks when it is cooling itself in a tub of water under the bed, waiting; I know how it looks when it lies on the table in the sheltered great floor-space between house and kitchen, and the children gathered for the sacrifice and their mouths watering; I know the crackling sound it makes when the carving knife cleaves its way to the other end; I can see its halves fall apart and display the rich red meat and the black seeds, and the heart standing up, a luxury fit for the elect; I know how a boy looks, behind a yard-long slice of that melon, and I know how he feels; for I have been there.”

–Mark Twain from the Autobiography of Mark Twain

Had Twain lived by the strict confines of succinctity, he may have written, “I know watermelons, and I know the way they look, sound, and taste.” I’m glad that brevity wasn’t his strong point. Every now and then, writers need to just let go and let their words flow like hot lava.

I met two very good, local writers at a Starbucks last week for a quick critique session. One shared a chapter of a work-in-progress—a sequel to an already published book. I devoured her words like they were potato chips. Her writing brimmed with dozens of active, gripping, attention-grabbing verbs that pumped life into her sentences. In seconds, I contracted verb envy—a form of word envy that afflicts four out of ten writers each year. Jealousy oozed from my pores, but somehow, I resisted the temptation to steal her verbs and use them as my own.

With my frosty mocha frappuccino in my left hand and her marked-up manuscript in my right, I looked across the table at my writing buddy and blurted, “You are a master at using bold, expressive verbs.” She smiled and thanked me for the compliment.

I know good writing when I read it, and when I come across an exceptionally well-written excerpt, I dissect the sentences in my mind to determine why the passage appeals to me so much. Most of the time, I find I am attracted to the strong, dynamic verbs the writer chose to depict the main action.

Consider this sentence: Samantha left the house.

Left is such a flat-footed verb. Don’t you wonder how or why Samantha left the house? Now, consider replacing left with a more active verb and adding the preposition from to the sentence.

Samantha raced from the house. Raced, bolted, dashed, darted, sprinted, zipped, or whizzed implies that she is in a hurry.

Samantha skipped from the house. Skipped or bounced implies that she is in a good mood.

Samantha crawled from the house. Crawled, wobbled, or limped implies that she is injured or impaired.

Samantha snuck from the house. Snuck, crept, or slipped implies that she is being secretive.

Samantha sashayed from the house. Sashayed or strutted implies that she is exuding confidence and perhaps wants to impress someone.

I continue to learn how to invigorate my writing using tips from books, blogs, podcasts, and other writers. The more I learn, the more I want to stand on a mountaintop and shout these small writing revelations for all to hear. This blog is my mountaintop—my forum for sharing writing tips and information with my friends, family, and followers. Enjoy!