Free Writing

I think I only started appreciating free writing as a college student for my workshop classes, while I did have to do them for high school classrooms.  I think I just didn't understand the purpose of them before, nor did I do them effectively.

Free writing is free from self-editing throughout the process.  It's supposed to be just a free-flowing idea bin through which flows new ideas, and emerging understanding.  It's a splatter of ideas and maybe even word dribble.  It's something that helps students put ideas on a page.  From there, they can reflect and draw on certain matters of importance.

This chapter also mentioned that there is value in free writing that we don't immediately think of.  It's important in this flowing, free process, that "false starts" happen.  Students start writing a particular thing, and realize it isn't right/ going anywhere and change directions.  I love this because it shows a valuable lesson.  False starts happen.  Sometimes, you go down a path of thinking and it doesn't work out/ shifts in some way.  AND THAT'S OKAY AND EVEN VALUABLE!

You need to let go of ideas that don't work fall to the wayside.  Wasting time pursuing things that aren't valuable is not necessarily a good writing skill.  Creative writers, on a professional level, know when an idea is leading them somewhere (note that the idea is what is doing the leading, and not the conscious writer) and when an idea is a dead-end that isn't pushing them farther.

In the writing workshop realm, free writes are particularly valuable at stirring thinking to actually turn into the writing process, or reject altogether.  I use this all the time as a creative writer.  In fact, it's helped to fuel more creativity than I ever employed to this capacity before.