Writing Workshop: Why Freewriting Counts as Writing

[Note: Most of the material from these writing workshop blog posts, plus a lot more never-blogged material, is now available in my book, The Writing Workshop: Write More, Write Better, Be Happier in Academia.]

Today's blog post is about a discussion we had in the writing workshop last week. As you probably know, we're big fans of writing little and often, and one of the things we do in the workshop is to help each other develop and maintain the habit of writing daily(ish). That's one of the reasons for our shared daily writing log.

This immediately raises the question of what counts as writing. Does revising count as writing? (Yes.) How about making figures? (Yes.) Outlining and reverse outlining? (Absolutely!) What about reviewing literature and taking notes? (Sure, unless you are using it to avoid working on the paper.)

One thing that definitely counts is freewriting, which is simply writing—longhand or on a keyboard—whatever you want, wahtever pops into your head, without any kind of judgement or evaluation. Freewriting was introduced to many American writers by author Peter Elbow (1973) who said, "The most effective way I know to improve your writing is to do freewriting exercises regularly." Today the advocacy is carried on by creativity expert Julia Cameron, who swears by the practice of "morning pages," which are three pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness writing, done first thing in the morning.

But despite all the enthusiasm from creativity quarters, many writing workshoppers are initially skeptical of the value of freewriting for their own writing practice. They just don't see how it's going to help them produce the literature reviews, research articles and grant proposals that they need.

Here's why I think freewriting should absolutely count as writing in your daily practice: Freewriting is to writers what practicing scales is to musicians. It makes easy and automatic the basic skill of getting words out of your mind and onto the page.

Imagine that you are an ambulance driver. But the only time you drive is when you're on an emergency call. So you get the call, you jump into the ambulance, and then you're like, "Umm, OK, let me see . . . check the rear-view mirror, check the side-view mirror, put it in reverse, gas pedal is on the right, brake pedal is on the left, now release the parking brake . . . " Who would want to be driven to the hospital by that driver? When I have a heart attack, I want the ambulance driver who drives all the time--on weekends, on holidays, at work and outside of work. That person doesn't have to think at all about how to drive; they can devote all of their conscious effort to getting me safely to the hospital.  The same thing is true with writing. The act of writing anything is not trivial—it takes some effort. The more you do it, the less effortful it gets.

The second reason I like freewriting is that it is a form of meditation. To meditate is to observe the thoughts zooming around in one's mind without judging them or reacting to them. To freewrite is to observe the words one is putting on the page without judging or reacting to them. It's practicing self-compassion and self-awareness in the form of writing.

Being able to write without judgment is extremely useful when drafting a new piece of scholarly writing. The first draft of anything is notoriously hard to produce. The reason it's hard is that we all want to write something good, but the first draft of everything is bad. So we write something bad, and then we judge it and hate it and delete it, and we're back where we started. The trick is to learn to write that first draft like freewriting, without judgment or evaluation. That's how you produce a bad first draft, so you have something to revise into a better draft.

The third reason I like freewriting is that it's easy. (Or at least it becomes easy, once you start doing it regularly.) If you count freewriting as writing, you can keep up a regular daily writing practice even when you're exhausted or burned out, even when you're traveling, even when your work feels hopeless. When folks come into the writing workshop, they're often in a pretty bad place with their writing. Often they are struggling or stuck; sometimes they're depressed, and any writing at all feels really difficult. 

We introduce them to our shared daily writing log and to the idea of writing little and often, and we encourage them to start by just freewriting for 5 minutes a day. Just write anything, we say. A shopping list. A song you remember from childhood. Write about the fact that you can't write, and that your research project is a mess, and you're wondering if grad school was a mistake. You don't have to show the writing to anyone. Just write for 5 minutes, and then note it on the writing log, and spend the rest of the day relaxing and taking good care of yourself. Freewriting helps people begin to change their relationship with writing, so it's less of a punitive obligation and more of a meditative pleasure. Because who needs more punitive obligations in their life, right?

Happy (Free)writing.