Free Your Writing

Welcome to the New Year, a time for resolutions (that often fall away by the end of January) and good habits (that often fall away before then). I know that it's a hopeless cliche, but I'm relaunching this blog today. By relaunching, I mean that I'm posting after a big period of not posting. Another New Year's resolution? Blog more? Post once a day, once a week, once a month? No, nothing like that. It just feels right.

Today, inspired by The Write Practice, I indulged in my first free-write of the year. What a joy!

In case you don't already know, free writing is a process that puts a stream of consciousness on the page. You can start with a prompt or just whatever words are in your head, but the point is to write non-stop and unedited for a period of time. Don't type, because typing encourages editing: It's not permanent enough, it can be deleted and re-written on a whim. Handwriting, however, is completely permanent: Once it's there on the page, it's there forever. You can cover it up, you can destroy the page, but you can't separate the ink from the paper. You just place the pen (or pencil) on the page and start writing and keep going; 5, 10 or 15 minutes is fine, or you can aim to fill a number of pages. You can either empty the contents of your head onto the page (literary vomitting) or you can write what's going on around you. Allow your mind to wander and jump from subject to subject. If your mind goes quiet and you find you have nothing to write, just keep going. Write the same word over and over if you have to, or switch to writing about what you can hear or see or smell. Just keep going.

What you end up with is nonsense - it isn't meant to be published - but free writing is a breeding ground for ideas that you didn't even know you had. It frees you from your inner editor and awakens your writer inside. And I had forgotten how much I enjoy it; it's liberating and blessedly easy.

I'll return to tonight's free writing in a day or two and see if there's anything I can develop.

So screw restrictive resolutions that commit us to 'blog once a week', or 'write the first novel by the end of the year', they are good goals and very worthy achievements, but this New Year, with my writing at least, I'm going back to basics. My goal is simply to write something every day, even if it's free writing or some other crap that is never unleashed upon the world.

Introduction

Have you ever felt like there is something you should be doing, like a greater destiny that is out there somewhere waiting to be discovered? I call that feeling my Writer Inside.

Somewhere inside me there's a little perspex cube with a tiny person beating on the walls and screaming to get out. Sometimes, when I'm inspired by a great book or a brilliant TV show or movie, that Writer Inside screams a little bit louder and beats on those walls a little bit harder.

I have been inspired and my Writer Inside is making a lot of noise.

A very talented friend of mine - someone that I've known since high school and who was a bridesmaid at my wedding - has a sketchbook on Conceptart, which I discovered the other day. She's an amazingly talented artist but her sketchbook reveals a ridiculous dedication and work ethic that has paid dividends. It is fantastic to see how she has developed her raw talent and how she's honed her skills. She's grown and developed and improved and she's inspired me to do the same.

Playwright, Gill Adams, once said "Writing is not a job. It isn't even a hobby. It's an addiction for which there is no cure."

It's such an appropriate quote, because my Writer Inside is stamping his feet. I have to write. It is imperative. My Writer Inside is screaming at me to set him free; hopefully, if all goes well, this blog will chronicle our journey together.