No matter what the age or stage, every writer
can get hit by that most dreaded of roadblocks: Writer’s block. And whether you get blocked during a project or on those
days you finally get some free time to write, writer’s block can be conquered. A good way to write your way out of writer’s
block is to use a tool all creatives indulge in: Freewriting.
Freewriting is just that, “free writing.”
You don’t have to use complete sentences, real words, structured prose or even writing itself. When you freewrite, you’re
able to write (or draw) anything your heart desires. The bonus is, you can do as little or as much as you’d like. The
only thing that matters is that you wrote (or created) something in the face of writer’s block. You kept at your daily
habit to write and this will ultimately arm you with the weapon to keep writer’s block at bay.
An extra bonus about freewriting is that you
can do it anywhere: On your computer, in a journal, on a laptop, the back of an advertisement and even a napkin. You can write
with a pen, pencil, crayon, marker or even with lipstick on a mirror. There is absolutely no limit to how, where and when
you freewrite.
The type of freewriting you choose to do is
entirely your choice. It can be a list of words, a description of a room or a person, the same word or letter written all
over a page or the same words you see on the cover of a book right next to you. Some ideas of what you can write during freewriting:
- A
list of rhyming words.
- An
entire page of nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc.
- Your
favorite foods all put into a sentence.
- A
short poem or haiku about today’s weather.
- A
“dear self” letter or a letter to your pet.
Freewriting is a great way to test your creative
abilities and to work with the various ideas circulating in your mind. It gives you a chance to see what new ways you can
be creative with words, how you can experiment with the rules of grammar and proper English, and explore different writing
methods and techniques.
Ultimately, freewriting literally gives your
muse “freedom” to play. With every shred of doubt torn away, every
fear of whether what you write is “good enough” squandered and every expectation of what to write erased, freewriting
gets you writing again, beating that nagging writer’s block once and for all!
Dawn Colclasure is a writer who lives
in Oregon. Her Web site is at https://dmcwriter.tripod.com/.
