About Freewriting: Notes of a Pencil Sharpener, Part II

Freewriting as a creative exercise can be found recommended in many writing books.  It’s a part of creative writing courses; writing or brainstorming software often incorporate it; variations of it are everywhere in the writing world.

Freewriting generally means setting a time of 10, 15 minutes or whatever length you choose, and then writing non-stop without deliberation until time is done even when it seems that nothing wants to be written. Especially then.

I can’t claim to be an expert on freewriting, although that certainly won’t stop me from writing about it. But I have done it enough to know its value.

Although you might begin the 10 minutes with a blank page and an empty head, by the end of it you may well have a sentence or two or even whole paragraphs that stand out. You will almost certainly have ideas you didn’t have before you started. The blank page is daunting though, and sometimes people fight a certain amount of inertia in actually doing it. A lot of that inertia comes from trying freewriting as a one-off technique that’s supposed to be good, without understanding the reasons for it.

Even though the concept seems almost ubiquitous today, freewriting seems to have started as a technique invented by the writing teacher Peter Elbow. He provides the theoretical context that makes this exercise both understandable and inspiring.

I bought Writing Without Teachers by Peter Elbow in the late 1970s. (The price on this 1973 paperback is $1.95.) This book was followed up by the more widely known Writing With Power from 1981 which has gone through several editions.

Both books are really about the psychology of writing. They’re about contradicting the common viewpoint that in order to form a good style we should know our meaning, know exactly what we want to say, before putting words on the page. Elbow’s viewpoint is that meaning is not what you start out with but where you end up. Writing is a way to end up thinking something you didn’t start with. “Writing is, in fact, a transaction with words whereby you free yourself from what you presently think, feel and perceive” (Writing Without Teachers).

Elbow’s model for the writing process is composed of growing and cooking. He describes the growing process as having four stages: start writing and keep writing; disorientation and chaos, emerging centre of gravity; mopping up or editing.

Freewriting is what powers the growing. Set aside 10 minutes. Start writing. Don’t stop for anything. Don’t rush but don’t stop. Never look back, do not cross out, do not muse about word choice, just go. If you get stuck, it’s fine to write things like, “I don’t know what to write, I don’t know what to write,” or repeat the last word over and over until something catches. The only requirement is that you do not stop until time is up.

In a sense I’m saying, ‘Yes, freewriting invites you to write garbage, but it’s good for you.’ But this isn’t the whole story. Freewriting isn’t just therapeutic garbage. It’s also a way to produce bits of writing that are genuinely better than usual: less random, more coherent, more highly organized. This may happen soon in your freewriting exercises, or only after you have done them for quite a number of weeks; it may happen frequently or only occasionally; these good bits may be long or short. Everyone’s experience is different. But it happens to everyone. (Writing Without Teachers)

He recommends keeping a freewriting diary, just taking 10 minutes a day.

This simple exercise can be elaborated into an entire regimen of eventually fruitful writing which Elbow describes in Writing With Power. But I wanted to mention what he means by “cooking.” He sees cooking as the interaction of contrasting or conflicting material. For example this interaction can be between people in those cases where the discussion goes somewhere. It can be between contrasting and conflicting ideas in the work itself. It can, importantly, be interaction between metaphors.

“Make as many metaphors as you can. And analogies, comparisons, examples. Encourage them. Let them roll off your pencil freely. Too much. They produce interaction and cooking just as in the interactions between people and ideas. When you make a metaphor, you call something by a wrong name.” (Writing Without Teachers) In the beginning the more mixed metaphors the better!

He has a lot of intriguing discussion about what constitutes cooking, and noncooking, but I’ll leave it there.

In Writing With Power, Elbow takes the freewriting concept and sets out programs of writing which incorporate both control and creativity.  I prefer the simplicity of the earlier book.

But in the later book he describes the following as “The Open-Ended Writing Process,” which I’ve found helpful.

1. Write non-stop for 15 or 20 minutes.

2. Pause and find the center or focus of what you wrote and put it in one sentence.

3. Use that sentence as the start for another burst of non-stop writing. Let the writing go wherever it wants. At the end it may have nothing to do with the starting sentence.

4. Pause and focus and write down another starting sentence. Write non-stop again.

5. Keep up this cycle until “you get to the piece of writing that is in you that wants to be written.”

6. Find a way to write it. Maybe it’s done, maybe it needs a new draft. Perhaps you need (heaven forfend) an outline, even.

7. Elbow says this process is most useful if you sense you have something to write, but don’t know quite what it is, and you’re willing to allow for time and chaos while you develop it.

Now although I’m promoting Elbow’s ideas here, and I think both these books repay study, I don’t do freewriting nearly as much as I should, although it does come in useful at times. In a way I’ve used this review to revisit Elbow’s ideas and to get me going on it again in a more pure way.

Of course, I’ve looked on the Internet for some easy computerized way of freewriting.  Basically you just need a text editor and a timer that you can set.  There are programs for sale of course, which incorporate the idea, but one which doesn’t cost anything is WriteSparks Lite.  It is a come-on for full paid software and you have to give up your e-mail address to get it (they say this is for an occasional mailing which you have the right to unsubscribe from immediately).  I haven’t had any problems with it, and even the Lite version incorporates the freewriting idea well, even providing some prompts, should you need them.

You can also use Timeleft, a free desktop timer utility, while using your favorite word processor.

I have to end with a little creative piece, as in Part I, from Kenneth Maue’s book, Water in the Lake: Real Events for the Imagination.

LITERATURE

Write to 40 people and ask them to send you one word of their choice.  You may want to make this request of friends, or strangers, or a combination.  Tell them you are writing a piece of literature composed of 40 contributed words, and that you’d like them to contribute.  As some people may not respond right away, or at all, continue seeking contributions until you’ve received 40.

When you have all the words collected, write a piece of literature that contains these 40 plus as few other words as you need to make a coherent piece of writing.

Send a copy of this piece of literature to all the contributors.  Include a list of names, and possibly addresses, so they all may know who the others are.

Note: For Part I see https://fencer.wordpress.com/2006/06/09/books-on-writing-and-creativity-notes-of-a-pencil-sharpener-part-i/ .

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