Always Begin with Free Writing

"If we taught our children to speak in the way we teach them to write, everyone would stutter."

Mark Twainn
For any of you who are parents, you may remember how happy you were to hear your first child's first words. And you did not correct the way your child spoke the word. You were simply excited to hear "the word." Any word, though of course "mama" sounded like music to your ears (or "dada"). As your child grew, and their vocabulary along with it, you did not correct how your child spoke. Not until you sensed that your child had comfort with speech.

This "lesson" is only recently being applied to the world of writing whether for children or adults. When learning to write starts with this "uncorrected" approach, the child can produce words that carry significant personal meaning. The rules can and do come later, as does non personal/objective writing. Lucy Calkins' in The Art of Teaching Writing goes into great deal about how to help our young children be natural writers as they are natural speakers of their language of origin. Calkins' book is useful for both children's and adult's writing despite the fact that contemporary adults have learned specific "writing rules" early in their lives as school aged children.

In order to get going with your writing, it's necessary to forget the writing rules you have learned and just start somewhere, anywhere.

As Henriette Anne Klauser said in Writing on Both Sides of the Brain (p. 13), "Sometimes you need to begin in the middle and go back to the beginning and then write the end and then stop. Often you do not even know how this thing best begins until you have figured out the end."

Uncensored writing, writing where we suspend our usually harsh inner critic, is generally referred to as "free writing." It's been around for a long time and is one of the staples of any writer or wannabe writer's toolkit. There will be time to read, re-read, organize, revise/edit. But, without free writing there can be no beginning, middle or end. According to Peter Elbow in Writing With Power, free writing by its very nature is ALWAYS excellent writing. It is not meant to be finished writing. It is meant to capture your spontaneous thoughts on paper.

So begin now, with whatever comes to your mind. Do NOT think. Let your pen or pencil be your guide. You can use the computer, but you're more likely to access the right creative side of your brain if you write by hand. Do not stop until you've set a timer and the timer has run out, even if it means repeating yourself or writing nonsense words till the time runs out. If you've never done this exercise, likely 10 minutes will give you a positive experience. It will get you past the point that Henriette Anne Klauser calls "the wall." "So, welcome the wall. Good stuff lies just beyond. Keep on writing past the exhaustion or the emptiness, past the urge to quit, and reach the summit" (Writing on Both sides of the Brain p. 18).

Begin at the beginning of whatever finds its way to paper. Trust the process. You'll get to the product you desire.