Freewriting – in search of extraordinary ideas

Freewriting can help to overcome crisis, idleness and unwillingness to work. Get the inside on it from this article!

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This article will help you to overcome your creative crisis and cope with your idleness and unwillingness to work, because today we will talk about freewriting.

When bankers, businessmen and other serious people hear the word “creative” they start thinking the following: “Come on, I’m not a writer or something, what I need this article for?” And this is where they are totally mistaken!

The following method is meant to help people of different professions.

Freewriting? I’ve never heard that word before…

To tell the truth, it was my friend Marina who inspired me to write this article.

She has been working as a copywriter and rewriter for many years already. She writes different texts and fills websites with content for money. I can say that she has quite succeeded doing that, because only in two years this hobby turned from a small addition to the salary into full-fledged job and the main source of income.

She got acquainted with many clients who started giving her a huge amount of orders. However, one day Marina’s desire to earn more money led to fatigue.

Marina complained to me: “I wake up in the morning and realize that I can’t write a single word. I don’t even want to open my laptop. I don’t find any topic interesting anymore; it seems to me that everything has been already written about, and I’ve been just wasting my time. What can I say, I’m suffering from a creative crisis.

I used to cope with it with the help of a short-term vacation and complete rest from work. However, it’s been three days of rest already, and I’m still not ready to return to work. I really need to earn money and I don’t want to let my clients down, they’ve already postponed the deadlines. What should I do?

And this was when I decided to start writing anyway. I wrote whatever I could come up with, even if it had nothing to do with my task. You won’t believe it, but only in 15 minutes I sketched a plan of 3 texts. Then I started writing articles according to this plan. I’ve barely managed to type so fast, that’s how my work has progressed. I’ve never had such a productive day before”.

“So you are using freewriting for overcoming creative crisis?” – I exclaimed.

At first Marina hasn’t understood what I was talking about, but she was glad to hear that her method has such a sophisticated name.

What is freewriting?

“But wise is the man who disdains no character, but with searching glance explores him to the root and cause of all, and thus writes not only for the sake of his glory but for the sake of expressing his soul”.
Nicolai Gogol

Even the all-knowing Wikipedia doesn’t offer the definition of freewriting.

In fact, this word is used for defining the peculiar manner of writing when a person writes down everything that comes to her mind.

By doing this you may manage the following:

Get your creative process moving;
Generate a few genial ideas or create a new business concept;
Get a boring task done very quickly;
Accumulate your drowsy inspiration;
Overcome idleness, etc.

As you can see, the method of freewriting is very useful.

Obviously, it will be handier for writers, journalists, copywriters and other people whose occupation is connected with writing texts. However, it has been also successfully used by PR-managers, directors, artists and even businessmen.

Despite its sophisticated name, freewriting is not the phenomenon of the XX century. It was used even by Nicholai Gogol in his epistolary works and by other writers of that time as well.

However, freewriting was exposed to the vast audience in the XX century due to the appearance of such books as “Becoming a Writer” by Dorothea Brande, “Writing Without Teachers” by Peter Elbow, “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron.

You probably also know the name of one of the most prominent followers of this writing method – Ray Bradbury, the Pulitzer Prize winner and the author of one the best books of the present, “Dandelion Wine”.

Freewriting: how it can be used?

This method is quite easy to use: take a sheet of paper, a pen (if you don’t feel great about writing something, create a document in your Microsoft Office Word on your laptop), and start writing all thoughts that appear in your head.

Try to concentrate on this task and spend at least 15 minutes doing that. In this way there is a chance that you’ll eventually come up with a genial idea.

After you’re done, read what you’ve written. Your story may be combined of random sentences, starting with “What a beautiful sunrise I shared with you” and ending with “I really have to buy that cute brown skirt”.

Don’t get upset and don’t even think about giving up and throwing away your writing.

It is okay, if you don’t cope with this task at once, sooner or later you’ll surely manage it.

However, if you try for numerous times but can’t go any further, you simply don’t know the secrets of successful freewriting.

That’s no great tragedy, I’m glad to share them with you!

6 secrets of successful freewriting

The experienced followers of this method are gladly sharing their secrets with amateurs. Obviously, there are much more than 6 of them, but I’ve chosen the best:

Determine the time frame.
In order not to get distracted on your watch, just set the alarm clock which will warn you in 15 or 20 minutes: “Come on, children, your time is up. Put away your pens and paper”.
Don’t let anything interrupt your writing process.
You may hear your phone ringing, your Skype beeping or your cat screaming – let them do that.
The only sound which can stop you from writing is your alarm clock.
Express your thoughts vividly.
Don’t try to embellish the reality.
Even if you notice some mistakes or excessive usage of slang, you’ll get the chance to correct your work after you finish writing.
Don’t make your standards too high.
You should not start working with such thoughts: “I’m going to write something extraordinary right now”.
The more relaxed you are, the more chances to write something really genial you’ve got.
Set a concrete topic.
For example, if the topic you choose is called “How to become happy?” you should immediately write down everything that comes into your mind on this matter.
Don’t start working with your text right away.
Drink a cup of coffee, check your email, take at least a 15-minute break, and only then you can start developing your idea, if there is anything to develop, of course.