At least for today, give this a shot: Let go of all your stinkin’ bigshot goals. Completely let go. Drop ’em. Ah. There now. That feels better. Spacious. Now you have room to breathe. What should you do with this beautiful blank slate? Let’s see what happens when you invite something else. Ask yourself: What… Continue reading Just Forget About Your Goals
Category: freewriting
Does Freewriting Need to Be Messy?
How to Impose Structure After You Write In my experience… the more you do it, the less messy it gets. That’s not to say the results are the same every time or that freewriting is the same for all people… or that there’s a right way to do it. My statement applies two ways: 1… Continue reading Does Freewriting Need to Be Messy?
How to Freewrite
In her 1938 book If You Want To Write, Brenda Ueland gives a beautiful description of what it takes to foster the imagination and support a productive writing practice. She describes two things that I have also found to be key components: stillness or “moodling” (for me meditation serves this purpose as well as many… Continue reading How to Freewrite
The Art of Finding the Right Question While You Write
Questions are powerful. When you ask yourself questions, you can work this mysterious magic to transform a “train” of thought into a more flexible fluid thing where anything can happen. When we’re writing something, it can happen that we get caught up in the momentum. We think that because we started out a certain way,… Continue reading The Art of Finding the Right Question While You Write
The Essentialist Secret to Productive Writing
Minimalism is about paring things down to the minimum — minimum elements, clean sleek minimal design. Essentialism is similar but different. It’s about “less but better.” In Greg McKeown’s book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, he lays out the core essentialist mindset. 1. Individual choice: We can choose how to spend our energy and… Continue reading The Essentialist Secret to Productive Writing