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Today, I'm honoured to welcome a guest blog from Emily Warner! Thank you so much Emily! :)
On Saturday 1st February I was fortunate enough to attend a course on free writing, run by Charlotte Baker, author, associate lecturer and tutor. The experience was extremely inspiring and has helped to motivate me to keep working towards my dream of becoming a writer.
For as long as I can remember, I have been writing. I still recall the excitement of a blank page and the pride I felt once I had filled it with words. There were no limits to what my overactive imagination could conjure and these ideas were all carefully recorded on paper and then gleefully related back to anyone who was willing to listen. Over time my writing has become more refined yet restrained as I have moved from primary school where creative writing is encouraged to secondary school where I have been taught to write essays not stories. Despite this I have still found ways to enjoy and share my writing, through story competitions and my blog.
The reason that I participated in the course was because I am aiming to study English Literature and Creative Writing at university. This course will give me the opportunity to write creatively again. The workshop seemed like the perfect opportunity to expand my knowledge about free writing and help to overcome writer’s block in the future. However, I unexpectedly gained countless other skills across the course of the day which were both enlightening and useful.
Free writing is essentially the act of writing continuously for a set period of time. You do not write for a purpose or with the intent of producing perfect material, therefore you write without expectation. Often the writing produced is very raw and emotional, sometimes quite cutting or difficult to write. Charlotte used the following quote, which perfectly describes the process of free writing:
“Free writing is like getting into a car and just driving. There’s no destination to reach or goal to achieve, it’s all in the process, and process is everything”
We started with an introduction to free writing followed by a discussion of the benefits of the activity and ways in which free writing can be carried out. Interspersed with this were free writing tasks, for a maximum of ten minutes, each based around a different stimulus such as a photo, sound or word. All of these resulted in interesting and varied responses from the participants. After each writing task the group was invited to discuss the process of writing so that we learnt from the experience of others, not just our own. The group format was very effective, allowing in depth discussion and offering a range of perspectives and age groups, who all tackled the tasks differently.
Free writing is a very effective way of breaking through writer’s block. Writing without fear of judgement or doubt can be very freeing and brings down the mental barriers we put up by telling ourselves, ‘we are not good enough’. This is an issue which plagues most writers and one which I have certainly struggled to overcome myself. The first few tasks we were asked to do during the workshop felt difficult because of this writers block. I was unsure what to write, desperately wanting it to be something worthy. However, after I became more comfortable with the idea of continuous writing, the words flowed onto the page with ease, which was a momentous achievement for me.
It also helps to boost creativity, providing a wealth of new ideas and sometimes useful phrases and words. Although not everything I wrote on the day was useable, when reviewing the process of writing, some of it was beautiful and has helped to breed more ideas for future poems and stories.
In addition to breaking writer’s block and boosting creativity, free writing is very therapeutic and helps when dealing with emotions that are hard to face in day to day life. This has been particularly useful for me, because I find writing down emotions and anxieties a way of alleviating these feelings. ‘A problem shared is a problem halved’ is a traditional saying, yet not always practical, because someone who is suffering from grief or mental illness might be afraid to verbalise how they feel to another person. However, writing this down instead can be less intimidating and can achieve the same unburdening of the mind as talking. This, therefore, makes free writing a kind of therapy where a person can be honest without fear of judgement and express things they are not ready to articulate.
You may think that it seems a chore to free write, but many of you will do it without even realising. Having kept a journal for many years, I have used it as a place to write about my thoughts, feelings, hopes and beliefs. It is not something which I share with other people and it is therefore a safe space for me. It was not until I went on this enlightening course that I realised I had actually been free wiring unknowingly for most of my life through my journal. As each person spoke, we realised that almost all of us used free writing to some extent and everyone who had, reported that it was a very liberating experience. One woman described it as a ‘purging’, which perfectly captured my own experience of journaling.
In conclusion, there are countless benefits of free writing which I learnt about on the course. This session has taught me something new and encouraged me to free write more regularly. I am thoroughly inspired by Charlotte and her successful career as a writer, and hope that this course can help me to achieve my own ambitions.