Free writing is a pressure-free way to get your thoughts onto paper, to practice your writing skills and to brainstorm without any reservations. The process can be either completely unregulated or somewhat focused, depending on the context and purpose for the writing. Free writing can be a very enjoyable and productive thing as you continue to practice often and produce more and more work.
Many people have trouble jumping into writing and getting started with the process. Free writing is a great way to get started with the writing process and free associate. “Free writing resembles the warm up you might do before exercising. There is no ‘correct’ way to do this,” so you can try a variation of techniques and use what works best for you (Richmond 2009). As you make free writing a habit and write more, you can tweak the process to fit your needs. The best way to begin is to just have a blank computer screen or notepad and begin writing for a few minutes. You can time yourself, say about five minutes, and then look back over what you wrote and see if you can make something out of your words!
If you like or need more organization to this process, you can pick a topic of your choice to write about. This will naturally make your brainstorming more focused. This is an approach that teachers use in the classroom often to get students thinking about a particular issue. This approach is also a good way to initiate a group conversation (everyone writes down their individual thoughts first, and then share their thoughts with the group). As you can see, free writing can be used in many contexts and is a great way to spend some time working on your writing skills and writing organization.
Works Cited
Richmond. (2009). Freewriting: A Way Around Writer's Block. Retrieved June 8, 2010, from Writing2: http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/freewrite.html