Free Writing

If you follow us on Facebook, you’ll know that this summer I’ve been posting vacation pictures as inspiration. I am grateful that my husband likes to travel and seeing other parts of the world is important to both of us. For me vacation is a time to reset my brain. It’s time away from the normal routine and familiar surroundings. Since we usually do a lot of hiking, it is also a time to immerse myself in nature and move my body in new ways. Nature allows my brain to roam free, to think beyond the confines of what I’m used to seeing and hearing every day. Birds I’ve never heard before (or never noticed), the wind, water, the sounds of my steps through the forest. It’s a rejuvenation I can’t get anywhere else.

This year I took along my writer’s notebook to do some free writing. Free writing is powerful for many reasons. Julia Cameron, in her book The Right to Write, says, “most of us try to write too carefully. We try to do it ‘right.’ We try to sound smart. We try, period.” She advocates for writing three pages every morning as soon as you get out of bed. When I’m working on a book, I usually can’t manage this and crafting a novel, but if I’m between books I do try to get something down in my notebook. Free writing allows us to clear away the clutter in our minds. To not judge what we write and not worry about sounding smart. The only rule in free writing is there are no rules. No right or wrong. Just put words on the page. It doesn’t matter if they don’t flow together or make a cohesive whole. As Cameron says, we’re allowing ourselves “to just hang out on the page.”

Establishing the habit of a writer’s notebook on a daily basis also helps establish time for our writing. It’s so easy to see the writing as something “other” or something I just do for fun, when, in fact, it is very important to me. Daily writing helps me carve out time for what I am passionate about.

When I was teaching, the students used a writer’s notebook. We taught them how to write without boundaries or purpose, and then to take something out of the notebook to work into a finished piece. Maybe when I free write, it becomes a character sketch for a new character I’ve been thinking about. Maybe there’s a phrase or passage of what I’ve written that can become the seed for a new story. I won’t know until I go back and reread.

Free writing also allows us to practice. Because, as we all know, practice makes perfect. Or in our case as writers, better. There is no such thing as perfect. Sometimes I just make lists of words —synonyms for a word or emotions. Sometimes it’s a list of names I like. These can become fodder for later writing. When I free write, I forget about the mythology of being a writer and become a writer because I am writing. There may be no ulterior purpose for what I have written, but the act of writing makes me a writer.

So I thought I would share a little of my free writing from my last vacation. We went to the Olympic National Park in Washington to hike in the mountains, rain forest, and along the coast. What a boon after being cooped up for two years with the pandemic. I was able to let my mind wander free as I trekked along.

Here are some photos I took along with the free writing I did. These examples are unedited because that’s what free writing should be. I hope you enjoy them and get some ideas for putting free writing into practice, however, you make it work for you. Happy writing.

ferns unfurling

fronds unfurling to grasp the sun as it trickles through the forest canopy to the floor

water trickles, blabbles, clamors, thunders, roars down the mountain. Snow melt making its way to the rivers, lakes, and ocean below

Snow melt trickles down the mountainside, gathering speed it babbles and clamors until it meets the river and with a thunderous roar pushes over the rocks and boulders to the sea

cloud shadows make a patchwork on the mountainside blanketing the trees from the sun