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Extravagant, Feel-Good Freewriting
Finding a place where you feel comfortable writing is a good first step toward a productive practice. For some people, that can be anywhere — a park bench, a bus, a library, a coffee shop. Other people have a sacred space at home where they write. I’m a dedicated bed-writer, but every so often I go to a coffee shop to write. It makes me feel temporarily cool, and it also keeps me from interrupting myself with household tasks.
If you’re short on ideas, freewriting is an efficient way to get what’s stuck in your mind and heart out on to the blank page. The freewriting technique aims to bypass your internal editor and shut off other anxieties that keep us all from writing our truth.
A new book on writing prose by novelist and short story writer Jeff P. Jones begins with a series of exercises on freewriting. The ebook version of Writing for the Reader: Practice in Prose Craft is free between November 2 and November 6 . It was a little hard for me to figure out how to get the free copy. Click on the “$0.00 to buy” link under the Kindle Unlimited info.
I taught with Jeff in the English Department at University of Idaho, so I’m familiar with his kindness to students, his intelligence, and his hands-on teaching style. His craft book combines those elements, and its opening chapter brings together all the best of freewriting theory and…
