AS USUAL gym membership soared last month as folk fought the flab acquired over the festive season: press-ups and weightlifting instead of mince pies and Christmas cake.

Not to be outdone, members of the Airedale Writers’ Circle also took up exercise at their January meeting, though the effort involved was much more mental than physical.

Together we came up with a list of ten words (see to the left), under the headings of names, a place, a country, a colour, a food, a drink, an animal, an emotion and an abstract term.

We then had 20 minutes to write a story or poem using all these words.

The results were mostly works of fiction, albeit coloured by the authors’ own factual experiences and knowledge.

That said, we were surprised that the member who penned an account of sailing across the Pacific Ocean from Chile had no experience of sailing.

Some of these stories were humorous, others romantic , and a couple were even in verse.

All of us at the Writers Circle agreed that it was harder to weave in “jealousy” and particularly “insidious”, than the other – “concrete” words in the list.

Such an exercise can stimulate the creative mind to compose a really polished piece of prose or verse later, from the rough, hasty scribblings of that evening at the group.

Indeed some established writers prime their creative pumps by starting their writing day with half an hour or so of jotting down pretty much whatever words come to them, without stopping to edit any of it.

Other authors find this strategy of no use at all – this is an example of how there are few hard and fast rules for successful writing other than “just do it!” and “do it often”.

Similarly music boosts some writers’ creativity but others find it an annoying distraction, while gazing out of the window for inspiration works for some.

Whereas for others, they declare their concentration only improves on turning their backs to any view outside.

Pictures or photographs can stimulate creativity and even resurrect deeply buried memories of prose – and perhaps particularly verse – as I found out on a creative writing course on the Hebridean island of Iona.

Sent into the Heritage Centre there for inspiration I was struck by a photograph of a crofter ploughing with horses in World War Two.

It reminded me of a poem I had studied at school – 50 years ago – which until then I had not thought of once.

I could not rememember its title, any of its lines or who write it – just an impression of wild horses unexpectedly coming to serve farmers deprived of fuel, and therefore tractors, in a war.

A Google search later revealed the poem to be The Horses by Edwin Muir.

That recall jolted me into writing my own poem about the transition from horses to tractors on farms.

Had we followed the advice of one (nameless) writing tutor we would have benefited too from physical exercise.

Wearying of his students overusing adverbs he suggested they do five press-ups whenever they wrote one.