Writers -- Why Free Write?

 

When I was a new fiction writer (I'd been a journalist and PR writer) and fiction was a new road, I found Nathalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones. It recommended Free Writing and has sold over two million copies. Goldberg wasn't the first. Dorothy Brand proposed a form of it as early as 1934.

It's simple. 

• Find a prompt. Anything you see, smell or hear: A chair, a bird singing, a photo, a person coughing...
• Put pen to paper and write for 10-15 minutes. The exact time is not important. It's what works for you.
• Write without stopping. If you freeze, write the last word or any word over and over until you can go on.
• Don't correct.
• Do it daily or do it if you feel blocked. Just do it.

I did it by myself for years, especially when blocked, but then I mentioned it to Lydia, who lived in my French village. Although she was French, she'd spent years in the U.S. and had a degree in English and writing. We would meet at least weekly in a café, find a "victim" as a prompt and off we'd go our pens running across the paper. The "victim" never knew they were the subject.

Then we'd read what the other vote, not to correct or judge but to see what the "victim" triggered in our minds.

If there were no "victims" we'd open a book and select a sentence that would become the first sentence of our Free Write.

Eventually Lydia's schedule made it impossible to get together. When I said to my husband how much I had missed the two-person Free Write, he suggested we do it together. He's a journalist who had dabbled in fiction. 

We did. It was wonderful.

When my friend Julia, who writes poetry for herself and takes fantastic photos, asked if she could join, we agreed.

We've formalized the sessions, taking turns suggesting a prompt. When everyone was in Geneva, we'd meet in a café Tuesday mornings, have our beverage of choice and write for 10 minutes. We'd read what we wrote, again not to judge, but to compare what we thought. Sometimes our efforts were similar. Other times, other than the prompt link, they were wildly different. The format might be fiction, memoir, half and half...

Sometimes there were groans as we tried to transmit a prompt onto the paper. Other times we were inspired and ink flowed.

The challenge of often being in two countries (France and Switzerland) was overcome, thanks to the internet. The prompt would be shared the day before although it was not to be looked at until we were ready to write. The person who provided the prompt did have a head start.

Although we tried to keep Tuesday mornings even in two countries, life happens and we'd do the Free Write at different times on the same day for the discipline. We shared our work in emails, and I would post them in this blog https://theexpatwriter.blogspot.com. 

I know other writers who have said they use our prompts to do their own Free Writes, but don't share them with us. 

When I'm working on my fiction and feel blocked, I will do a Free Write on my own, but doing it with other writers is more fun. I find the days we do our Free Write, my writing goes more smoothly.

For isolated writers who want to Free Write with others, use the internet to find writers that might want to do this regularly. It's a motivator.

 Check out D-L's website https://dlnelsonwriter.com