The definition of freewriting is writing down your raw thoughts for at least ten minutes which out interruption. You must let your mind open up and free itself of grammar, punctuation or editing. This means you write non-stop without stopping for any reason. Your thoughts may drift out of the subject that you originally have started with but let your thoughts flow. Your thought might even be blank or seem to be about nonsense but the only important thing is that you do not stop writing for the duration of the ten minutes.
When one is consumed with premeditating their thoughts and editing the words before they appear on paper, it inhibits the contents of their thoughts and feelings. Freewriting allows one to drop the obsessive thoughts of making mistakes. This can be difficult for some who have a habit of thinking things through before it appears on paper. Some, like me, may have the feeling that once on paper it is semi finalized. When we let all our thoughts flow onto the paper in front of us we give ourselves more ideas to work with and later choose the ideas that we think are the best and we can edit these after the fact.
Although the whole idea of freewriting is new and surprising to me, I find it interesting that it can help and improve your writing skills. Even though you may produce some garbage out of letting all your thoughts go, you may also get some excellent and intriguing thoughts that otherwise might have been skipped over due to your internal editor. I look forward to freewriting and seeing how it affects and improves my writing.
Hi Mandy!
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to let you know that you seem like a great writer already. your vocabulary is awesome!! I like your second paragraph, because I can relate to it, I always seem to get consumed with my thoughts of editing the words before they appear on paper, because I want to make sure that when I go back to read it that it is going to sounds right. and with the free writing that is not allowed, so that part of it is kinda hard for me and will hopefully get easier in time. I also like how you said that free writing allows a person to drop the obsessive thoughts of making mistakes, that is so true, you could not of said that any better. I wish you luck in this class and hope to work with you also.
Emily
Hey Mandy,
ReplyDeleteI to like to edit my words before I put them down on paper to make sure that my writing doesn't sound crazy. My first freewriting exercise wasn't strong and was pretty much garbage. I know that I could improve with practice though. It was definitely hard for me to keep typing without looking back or pressing the backspace button. This exercise really allowed me to see how often I use that backspace button. I agree with you when you say that the exercise allows you to drop the obsessive thoughts of making mistakes. However, I'm still obsessing over my freewriting exercise and the mistakes I made! Like freewriting and editing, it was hard to let it go and move on!
Hi Mandy,
ReplyDeleteYou remind me that we need opportunities to write before the writing becomes "semi-formal" or "formal" because sometimes the tangents spark new ideas or better ideas that should really be the focus of our formal essays.
Before I started producing freewrites, I would just draft my papers; I completely changed my mind about a paper more than once in the middle of writing, but I felt stuck. I didn't want to throw out what I had written since it took me time to produce it. In the end, I finished the essays, but they didn't showcase my actual critical thinking. If I had done freewrites, I would have worked out my ideas before formalizing my ideas in the essay.
Thanks for reminding me.
Take care,
Lauren
I like how you mentioned that your mind can drift out of subject. It's true, it happened to me almost throughout my whole freewrite exercise. I kept having to type up random things, which sounds really silly, but I guess thats all part of this exercise. Also I tend to type up whats going on around me at the current time, when I find myself lost out of the subject. I hope it gets better.
ReplyDelete