Hello, poetry party people! It's good to meet you all. Welcome to Floodmark! My name is Alli and I'll be your guide for the duration of this Musing today. Please keep all hands and pens inside the metaphorical vehicle as we discuss...
The Birth and Life of the Freewriting Process: From Freud to Floodmark!
Yep, today we're talking about this guy:
Image courtesy of photobucket.com.
I know, I chose a great picture. Don't worry, when you scroll down he'll stop staring.
So, as we continue on our poetical journey, you'll be hearing a lot of this word:
Now, maybe you are already familiar with the free writing process. But maybe you aren't. Or maybe you are and just want to humor me and keep reading about the creation and evolution of free writing, and how it ended up on this blog. :)
Let's start with a definition of free writing.
In a nutshell, it's all about this:
Free writing is essentially a fancy word for the process of dumping every single thought you have in a 5+ minute span onto a piece of paper. Now, I'd say that 70% of what you get from the free writing process is utter crap, but man, that other 30% is so good. So it's a skill worth honing. How might dumping words on paper be considered a skill, you may ask? How about you try free writing a little bit and then get back to me, because chances are your first few times will be awkward and produce some weird stuff. I think I wrote the same words over and over awkwardly for five minutes in my first creative writing class when free writing was assigned as an icebreaker. Let's just say the phrase "I like cats" was not the way I wanted to go down in creative writing class icebreaker-history. Anyway. In sum, practice makes perfect, and once you get the hang of it, you'll be able to access really great ideas that are currently locked away in your noggin, blocked by things like "What will I eat for dinner tonight?" and "Toast...Toast...Toast" (OK, maybe you're not a toast-zombie, but you take my point).
So what does Freud have to do with all of this?
Well, he didn't invent free writing exactly, but he did invent the psychology behind it. Free Association, a technique he used in his psychoanalytic therapy, led some brilliant writers to create the idea of free writing. Free Association was developed as an alternative to hypnosis because Freud wasn't into it. He saw some flaws in the process that he wanted to remedy, and given that hypnosis is simply a highly suggestive state, we can understand why: you are completely vulnerable to the influence of your psychologist, so you're not drawing your own conclusions. Simply put, there's no self-discovery. Instead, Freud wanted an environment where the patient had no interruptions to their flow of thought, so gradually free association became his thing. He would ask his patients to sit quietly and tell him all of their internal observations without fear of hypocrisy, judgement, being nonsensical, or offensive. They just reported the flow of their thoughts, word-for-word out loud in hopes that they'd discover something important about their identity, memories, etc.
A brief note: tons of people influenced Freud when it comes to free association, and I won't go into all of them here, but feel free to look it up on your own because it is pretty interesting.
A brief note: tons of people influenced Freud when it comes to free association, and I won't go into all of them here, but feel free to look it up on your own because it is pretty interesting.
Earlier I said that Freud didn't invent free writing, and it's true. He didn't. But he did lay the groundwork for writers to apply the idea to their creative endeavor. It slowly became a popular and widely accepted pre-writing technique in the creative writing world, and since many creative writers are also teachers, it has wormed its way into many a creative writing class.
And that's how free writing came to Floodmark. The best and first lesson one of my favorite poetry professors taught me was how to free write, and why it's important. She is an incredibly positive person, and believes that there is always something usable, productive, and beautiful to be found in the free writing process. It's a technique that produces endless surprises as it helps you navigate the twists and turns of your own brain. When you think of it like that, free writing becomes pretty cool. Which is why Floodmark has made free writing an important part of the blog (it even gets its own snazzy sub-header!). In the quest for "good poetry", all writers have sat at their desk and stared at a blank sheet of paper. If you've ever had writer's block, you know what I mean. It feels hopeless. Now, introduce free writing into your staring contest with your journal, and you have a way around your writer's block.
You can't go through it, you can't go under it, and you can't go over it, so let your brain take you around the block by writing whatever the heck pops into your beautiful little head for 5-20 minutes. And when you gush of creativity has passed, take a look at what you have written: I guarantee you'll be surprised. Now, here's another lesson about free writing my favorite professor taught me: find the sparkly spots. Find the parts that jump out as beautiful, quirky, interesting, and worthwhile and yank them out of the garbage pile (remember; 70% of your free write is probably trash. Unless you're super spectacular, of course.). Remember, free writing is a journey more than anything else. Follow the path your brain is setting down in front of you and you might find something great.
And that's how free writing came to Floodmark. The best and first lesson one of my favorite poetry professors taught me was how to free write, and why it's important. She is an incredibly positive person, and believes that there is always something usable, productive, and beautiful to be found in the free writing process. It's a technique that produces endless surprises as it helps you navigate the twists and turns of your own brain. When you think of it like that, free writing becomes pretty cool. Which is why Floodmark has made free writing an important part of the blog (it even gets its own snazzy sub-header!). In the quest for "good poetry", all writers have sat at their desk and stared at a blank sheet of paper. If you've ever had writer's block, you know what I mean. It feels hopeless. Now, introduce free writing into your staring contest with your journal, and you have a way around your writer's block.
You can't go through it, you can't go under it, and you can't go over it, so let your brain take you around the block by writing whatever the heck pops into your beautiful little head for 5-20 minutes. And when you gush of creativity has passed, take a look at what you have written: I guarantee you'll be surprised. Now, here's another lesson about free writing my favorite professor taught me: find the sparkly spots. Find the parts that jump out as beautiful, quirky, interesting, and worthwhile and yank them out of the garbage pile (remember; 70% of your free write is probably trash. Unless you're super spectacular, of course.). Remember, free writing is a journey more than anything else. Follow the path your brain is setting down in front of you and you might find something great.
Time for the nitty gritty, folks. To make it less boring, I went bonkers on PicMonkey to bring you THIS GLORIOUS INFOGRAPHIC:
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| You're welcome. |
Even though I might not be the best of graphic designers (I was an English/Creative Writing major, after all!), you get the gist of it. Now, wash, rinse, and repeat until you get something totally awesome that blows you away. If you like free writing, we'll be posting prompts, which you can find located under the "Prompts" category in our menu bar OR in our tags section on the right-hand side of your screen, you can click "Freewriting".
Well, everyone, we have come to the end of the post. Sad, I know. But never you fear, I'll be back every other week with some Monday Musings for you lot! And when I'm not around, my fearless cohort Emily will be posting some great stuff. So you win no matter what.
Well, everyone, we have come to the end of the post. Sad, I know. But never you fear, I'll be back every other week with some Monday Musings for you lot! And when I'm not around, my fearless cohort Emily will be posting some great stuff. So you win no matter what.
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