Free Writing: My Saviour

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For many years (I started blogging as early as 2004!) I have been trying to develop a habit of daily writing. When I started  blogging the goal was just to express myself,  but later on the goal transformed into something else. I started dreaming about writing that one novel, that one story, that many people dream of writing. Of-course, being the most severe critic of my own writing, I want to make sure that my writing does not suck. Professionally, I have been a stickler to rules when it came to producing any professional written documents. But professional writing or rather I should say business writing is all about providing some information to the reader, however, writing fiction is more about evoking emotions in the readers. In fact, those whose jobs require them to write business documents regularly, often develop a writing style that is too cold and mechanised. 

So, developing the habit of daily writing was my antidote to safeguard my writing style from being ‘cold and mechanised’. Unfortunately, developing this habit proved to be a rather tough task. First, I was not sure what I should be writing daily. Second, following a daily routine has never been my forte. 

I searched, inquired and read about other people’s experiences and it came out that daily journal writing is the way to go. So, I started a daily journal. Since, I spend most of my time in front of my computer, and physical journals are risk to one’s privacy, I decided that I would write on my laptop. My journal writing strategy was simple: I was writing about how my day went. In next few days, I realised that I am getting repetitive, as most of the day my routine was very similar. 

After trying out several other strategies such as using prompts, writing about past memories, to make myself write I found that most of these strategies did not work for me. Finally, I thought of trying out Free Writing. I was sceptical of this initially. But I found out that this really works. I never thought that this simple technique can be so effective. 

I started just writing whatever came to my mind and in some time I realised that I am able to incorporate more variation and scope in my writing. 

Free-writing was also instrumental in making me write daily. Earlier, the problem was that every time, I sat for writing, more than half an hour was spent on deciding what to write. And, that never helped me in getting consistent. Many times, I just wrote a line and then walked away. With free-writing I was able to get my thoughts flowing. 

It has worked for me, and I believe it can work for many. 

(I am going to write about my experiments with writing in my future posts. I would love to know more about your experiences on the same.)