You don’t need much to dive into a freewriting session. You don’t even need to be wearing pants if you don’t want to.
Unless you like to write in coffee shops.
Unless the coffee shop has a permissive clothing policy.
Anyway, you don’t need much.
Here are some things you may want:
- a writing utensil
- a recording device of some kind (for audio transcription)
- something to drink
- a laptop with a keyboard that you like
- a block of time
- a good workflow (a general plan for what you want to do and how you want to do it)
- the clothes on your back (unless you want to write without wearing pants, as suggested above)
A lot of people believe that they can’t begin to write unless they know what they are going to write about. This is not true.
Actually writing can bring you a lot more ideas than sitting around and thinking will.
All you need to do is to sit down and start writing. The more clarity of intention you have, the better.
However! A project like a mind dump or a morning freewrite needs no intention other than to release whatever you have currently rattling around in that ol’ noggin.
[bctt tweet=”With little more than the burning desire to freewrite, you make a serious dent in most any creative project in a couple of hours’ time.”] All you need to do is to commit to it.
Stuff may come up during your freewriting session. You may feel like you’re wasting your time. You may feel frustrated. There are a slew of techniques you can use to help you navigate a freewriting session (such as those I share in my course). But even with nothing more than the simple rule to write without stopping, you already have what you need to make serious progress. When you engage the flow of imagination with sincerity, discoveries are bound to happen.
Freewriting helps
- to get beneath the frustration of not having ideas
- to soothe the overwhelm of having too many ideas to know where to start or how to order them
- to reposition yourself amongst your self judgment that your writing won’t be any good
Over time, these limiting associations and negative beliefs can be brought more into your conscious mind so that you can stop battling with your best interests.
If you have the option of spending one hour freewriting, or one hour deliberating over writing, you really don’t have much to lose. If you are on the fence about taking freewriting seriously, why not give it your best shot?