Journal Free Writing is a Powerful Tool You Should be Using More than I Do

Before I get too far into this subject, I confess that I don’t use free writing as much as I should. It’s a tricky subject for me.

I journal every morning.

I keep a diary.

I journal for my comedic voice (funny stuff).

I journal for my productive creativity (blog entries like this one).

I have a commonplace book.

I carry a Zibaldone journal.

I use dedicated journals for every novel or screenplay I write.

But I’m out of the habit of free writing to tap into my creativity.

My first creative writing teacher recommended this a the cornerstone of a creative practice. Their technique was to write for an hour. They would look back at earlier entries to search for anything that struck them as the basis for a poem or a short story.

And that’s how they had conducted their creative practice for decades.

For a long while, free writing was all that I had. Forty years ago, I struggled to formulate stories, and was reluctant, therefore, to work on them.

What I could do was open up a notebook and write whatever random thoughts occurred to me. They might be in the form of a kind-of-story, or might be stream of consciousness.

But I wrote and wrote and wrote.

I think that’s what helped me gain confidence, the proverbial buckets of balls you hit to figure out your golf swing, before playing the game with any seriousness.

Meanwhile, I’ve gotten into so many specific creative practices that the randomness of just writing isn’t one of them. I’m so focused on being productive when I sit down to write, I’ve lost touch with just goofing around when I write.

My creativity has been harnessed, but maybe it’s suffering under the weight of the yoke.

Free writing taps into your creativity. At first, there will just be a trickle. You may feel self conscious writing random thoughts, and your subconscious restricts the flow out of fear of shame.

If you persist, and convince your whole self that no harm will come of this, and quite possibly some fun things may emerge, sentences will flow out ready-made. Stories will appear on the page as quickly as you can write.

A whole new set of emotions may plug the pipe, and you’ll have to jiggle the handle to get the words flowing again. Stay with it.

I really miss it. I used to think something amazing would emerge but I knew so little about the structure of stories back then that it was mostly random thoughts, fragments of memories, and probably some dream-stuff I’d suppressed.

I intend to try it again, and find a way to make it a part of my regular routine. Perhaps if I combine it with cartooning, it won’t feel like I’ve added yet another creative practice to an already busy five-to-nine passion project.

The beauty part of the whole thing is how simple it is to start. You get a notebook, sit in a quiet place, take up your pen, and write whatever thoughts you have.

Maybe it’s like a seance where you semi-direct the letters to form words, but here we are semi-directing the sentences to form thoughts.

You write for a while, maybe a set time, maybe just for as long as the mood is with you.

Then you stop.

The next day, you do it again.

Whether or not you sift through the words looking for nuggets of gold is up to you. I think there’s great benefit in the activity. You may find the seed for a great novel.

Give it a try.