Freewrite for Sunday, August 30, 2009

I was asked a question on another post and began to respond.  Since I hadn't written my freewrite for the day, I decided to C&P my response as my freewrite.  The question asked was:  do you have to be inspired to do a freewrite?

Henry, the way it usually works for me is that I open a space to write.  I place my fingers on the keys.  I wait for a thought to enter my head, it usually doesn't, so then I look around me and start describing what I see.  At this minute, I see a red, paper rose that my husband gave me for an anniversary a year ago.  I suddenly find myself writing about a rose or the color red or my husband or our trip to New Orleans for our anniversary....

That's how it works for me.  The important part is that you keep writing.  So if I wrote about the rose, but nothing popped into my mind I'd move on to mention my messy desk and then the cord that's winding around my desk from the window shade that's open.  Just keep writing, Henry.  The more you do it, the more quickly your mind will learn to make associations that travel off into something you didn't expect to write about.  If you stop to think for more than a second, you begin to edit your thoughts in your head.  That's what you want to avoid.

Just write, write, write.  Like I'm doing right now.  In fact, I think I'll cut-n-paste this to a new post because I haven't done my freewrite for the day.

Thank you for asking, Henry.  And if you want more details or discussion, please do ask. 

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Now I'm back again, I need to finish a couple minutes because the above took about three minutes.  I told someone that I'd be doing my twenty minute freewrite on Tuesday this week.  That's till my plan.  My kids go to school and I have a moment then to indulge.  Isn't that waht writing is?  Indulgence?  and yet neccessity?  I write because if i didn't what would I do?  Climb a mountain?  Ford a river?  or is that fjord a rive or is it just cross the darn river and then wring out my socks and keep going? 

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By the way, I will only accept freewrites to the DailyFreeWrite group.  If you want to discuss with everyone, go to the homepage our our group and look/talk in the conversation area. 

I'll leave group announcements in that area, too.