Free writing seems to be shouting
at me at the moment, and I’ve found myself almost evangelical about the
benefits of it. I’ve been promoting it in the Wise Words for Well-being
workshops I’m facilitating, and today at the journalling group in Water Lane
the discussion came up again.
Free writing (or unconscious
writing as some people call it) is where you literally keep writing, pretty
much without thinking, without editing, and without considering an audience.
Often you start with a prompt, and the main objective is to keep your pen
moving, it doesn’t matter what you write. If you get stuck simply scribble the
prompt over and over until something else spills from your pen.
I feel it’s just so good for
so many reasons: it’s a way of exercising your writing muscles, both literally
and metaphorically, it can help clear crap from your brain, we’re writing with
no expectations therefore we can’t get it wrong (and writing with no
expectations of anything ‘good’ is really good practice for writers especially,
as it helps shush our internal critic)
Free writing also gives space
for what we need to write to come out, very often the end of a piece of free
writing will be nothing to do with the initial prompt, and we may have had some
kind of realisation through the writing. And, sometimes, our unconscious can provide
us with amazing raw material to use in our writing, and even unexpected and
beautiful phrases, it can take our creativity in new directions.
Through the free writing I
did today at the journalling group I realised that I’ve been using free writing
since I was a teenager – even before I considered myself a ‘proper writer’ I
was using free writing to process difficult things that happened in my life. So,
today, my free writing today began with the prompt of a train, and ended with
the power of free writing, and my own personal realisation.
All I need to do
now is hunt among my scribbles for a beautiful phrase and I’ve pretty much
ticked all my free writing benefits. All in the space of fifteen minutes!
