Brainstorming makes my butt feel good

As I shared yesterday, brainstorming makes my butt sore.

I was pleased to receive so many kind emails and tweets from readers wishing to share how brainstorming affects their butts. It was a day filled with joyful butt-bonding, which made my butt quite happy.

Since this is clearly a topic that deserves more than just one blog post, I’m now going to tell you how brainstorming makes my butt feel good.

When I first started trying to write fiction eight years ago, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

I did, however, have a jetted soaking tub in my master bathroom, and a husband who could be lured there easily enough with the promise of nudity and warm water.

Once trapped with me in the oversized tub, Pythagoras was forced to stay and participate in conversations about writing. Sometimes I just wanted to vent about the submission process. Other times I wanted a sounding board for character ideas or help untangling a mess of plot knots.

This became known as “The bathtub brainstorm,” and it grew to be such an integral part of my writing process that I spent months hunting for the perfect tub when we built a new home a few years later.

In some ways, the bathtub brainstorm is a lot like the bike ride brainstorm. In other ways, the two are vastly different.

I’ll pause for a moment so you can insert your own joke about sweat, exertion, and/or heavy breathing. Got that out of your system? OK, good.

Moving right along, the bathtub brainstorm sessions tend to be more relaxing than the bike ride brainstorm sessions. A bathtub brainstorm occasionally includes wine, something that doesn’t work as well with the bike ride brainstorm (I tried once – still can’t get the Sangiovese out of the water bottles).

I’ve attempted the bathtub brainstorm by myself, but it never works as well. There’s something about conversing with another naked human that fuels the creative process. If you haven’t tried this, I encourage it. Go find a naked human right now – I’ll wait.

Though you might guess the bathtub brainstorm is more conducive to the development of love scenes, while the bike ride brainstorm is better suited to high-stakes action, that’s not always the case. Just the other day, Pythagoras and I peddled along the highway while discussing the details of a love triangle. Likewise, he once helped me weave such a terrifying murder plot from the comfort of our bathtub that I caught myself wondering how quickly I could reach his razor if he suddenly turned violent.

So now you know my brainstorming secrets. Probably more than you wanted to know, come to think of it.

Where do you do your best brainstorming? And most importantly, how does it impact your butt?