What’s something that’s NOT writing your book, but which FEELS like you’re actually doing it? AKA it feels like writing even if it isn’t?*
- my adaptation of the popular Twitter meme…
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I’ll go first: designing images and graphics can feel like… writing. Sometimes.
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World building and research. It feels like writing even though very little of it is going to end up on the page. The trick is to actually focus and not fall down a rabbit hole.
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Reading in your genre can sometimes spark ideas and knock loose your creative gears. I find that reading a book similar to the one you’re planning/writing, especially if it’s subpar, switches on the inner editor and causes me to consider what I would do differently, what works and what doesn’t, etc. Also, my characters tend to whisper to me when I’m in this dissection state of mind.
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Listening to music and imagining complex scenarios about your characters. Pretty sure I do this on the daily 
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Ooh! I had a moment this afternoon! Having a Friday Happy Hour drink with colleagues who take turns describing past romances is like developing back story on characters.
Who knew almost 70 year old algebra teacher Erica nearly divorced her husband a few years ago after a tryst with Juan, the Spanish exchange student she loved in college?
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Folding a new stack of loose leaf in half (which I get to do again soon!). I use it to outline chapters.
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Looking for quotes that fit the characters. For example, this one (for the villain) by Dorothy Parker:
‘Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.’
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Go Erica! Woah – so did Juan just show up, 50 ish years later?
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I’m like Jo, planning can feel like writing for me because I go through what I have written and see if something shakes loose. As my mind follows different threads it can be a rabbit hole thing of research or day dreaming… and then later forgetting some of the ideas:angry:
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I agree with a lot of these. Reading in the genre, research, and character sketches, notes to myself on what I want to include, random discoveries I com across now that I’m writing about a certain topic, thinking about writing 
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He was a widower and ended up living only a county away! I am still unsure of the cryptic details, but it did not seem that the ties were completely severed… scandalous for my backwoods area where most people never cross out of Virginia.
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I am constantly writing in my head. If I am on a long drive or just on my own somewhere, I am constantly running my writing through my head. So, even if I am not actually writing; I feel that I am still productive.
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For my fanfic pieces I love listening to music and constructing scenes around the songs. Been doing that since I was 12. Never gets old.
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Household chores like varnishing a floor, painting a wall or doing grandma-in-laws’ garden; right-brain does the manual labour while left-brain gets to wander and suddenly throws up all these scene and character ideas.
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I just purchased Plottr, so playing around with that is helping me sequence my current WIP without technically writing any of it.
But I also have to agree with @rtcatling; walking my dog - especially the long walks through the nearby forest - leaves my brain free to write my book in my head (even down to the level of dialogue!)
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Having coffee with a writing buddy … or afternoon tea! How I miss it.
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I love having run a pen out of ink. Just had to swap pens. 
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I love music, too. I have certain pieces/albums for the stories I write.
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Ya gotta love Dorothy. She’s so deliciously wicked.
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