I’ve long been a proponent of freewriting. Freewriting is the act of setting a timer (or a word limit) and immediately writing whatever comes to mind down on the paper. No thinking, no editing. Just a stream of consciousness.
Sometimes, you get interesting insights into your brain. Here’s what popped out on the page during a 10-minute freewriting session today:
That book on freewriting really made it sound like this was the key to finding that creative side of you, and some days I just don’t feel creative. Some days I feel like a schlub who just wants to sit around and do nothing. Why can’t I just be a consistently creative person? Why can’t I push myself to be better? To be stronger? To be a more interesting writer? Those are the questions going through my head these days.
So that’s what my brain was thinking about at one point today (and if you keep reading in that freewrite today, you’d see me immediately pivot to longing for the glory days of summer when I’d sit and play with my wrestling figures until 2am – yeah, freewriting can get pretty random).
As you can see, I still struggle with whatever “creativity” means. That lack of confidence is an ongoing issue for me.
Do you ever freewrite? Have you found any value in it? I have – I find it to be a form of really easy and free therapy. Try it sometime.
confidence, creativity, fear, freewriting, insecurity, therapy