Member-only story
A Lesson on Freewriting
Freewriting is writing without stopping, writing without standards, and writing that is private.
It’s a difficult task to do — writing without stopping. When we write, we constantly stop to think, to analyze, to evaluate, criticize, and revise. When we see representations of writers, they are presented as intensely focused, brows furrowed, treating writing like they are performing brain surgery where the slightest misstep means tragedy.
This stereotype is largely wrong. People who write find writing to be enjoyable for the most part. There are times in the writing process where intense focus and concentration are required, but that comes much later in the process and it does not dominate the entire writing process.
Freewriting is writing without doing any of this, writing wherein you let your mind wander and let your words follow. The point of freewriting is NOT to create a finished piece of writing, but to use writing to explore what’s floating around in our head in a benign, relaxed, even enjoyable fashion.
The goal of freewriting is to discover, explore, and find ideas that we might write in a more focused or concentrated fashion LATER.
Later, we can look back over our freewriting and try to locate some exigency, some reason for writing for an audience and writing more formally; writing where we do…
