The Blog Is Not Enough

I've recently discovered (well, rediscovered) a new form of writing.  It's called freewriting.  I've done it before with writing classes and such, but it never really worked for me, probably because I was being forced to do it.  But a few days ago, I started getting up a half an hour early to freewrite in my writing notebook (something that has been sorely ignored since I came to LA).

Freewriting is basically writing whatever comes into your head without format or anything.  You're just supposed to sit down and let the pencil move across the paper and see what comes out.  The point is to let your mind do the talking before you over think anything.  I think I cheat a little bit at the beginning, because I have a hard time coming up with something to write about, so I have to actually think for a minute until I think of at least one sentence to write.  From there, things pick up.

When I started doing it on my own (instead of in class or something), it was incredibly effective.  Once I got started, my hand just flew across the page.  In the past four days, I've created and fleshed out a number of characters for scripts I've been meaning to write for a long time but couldn't ever get enough details in my head to start.  I never feel my mind functioning the way it does when I'm freewriting (except perhaps in that limbo state between sleep and consciousness when it just wanders).  That's really what it's like though-- it's like daydreaming, but everything you think gets onto paper, so you won't forget it.

Content wise, my freewrites are great and incredibly helpful for me and my stories.  However, I would never publish them here (or anywhere) in the form they're in right now, because they're probably riddled with spelling and grammatical errors.  If I stop to correct those while I'm writing, my mind will lose its flow.  Of course, I wouldn't want anyone to see them with so many mistakes and do something like this to it (I promise my content is much better than this- be sure to read along):

Anyway, it's also good to practice other forms of writing than just public writing-- this blog is good practice for writing things for other people, but if I just did this kind of writing, I wouldn't be a very well-rounded writer.