All forms of physical activity require warm-up activities to ease you into your workout, and writing’s no different. If you’re struggling to write those first few sentences, and the challenges of your day are dominating your imagination, here’s the solution you’ve been looking for.

Freewriting is a pre-writing technique that gets your writing muscles warmed up. It transitions you from the daily grind to the creative mindset so you can limber up your imagination and get your words flowing.

In this concise how-to guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know to start your freewriting journey.

What is Freewriting?

Freewriting is a technique writers use to tap into their creative side. It’s helpful to overcome writer’s block or to use as a warm-up exercise. The goal is to fill the page with words that flow from you like a stream of consciousness. You do this by relaxing your conscious mind so that your subconscious mind takes over.

Freewriting allows you to access a stream of creativity that lies just below the surface of your consciousness. Train your mind to access those thoughts, and you will release your inner creative writer. The most challenging aspect of freewriting is to break the bad habits that interfere with your ability to channel those subconscious thoughts. It’s about tuning out your conscious thoughts, and tuning into the subconscious ones.

Master that Little Voice in your Head

We all have a little voice in our heads that criticizes and comments on everything we do, see, and hear. Rather than using that little voice to correct spelling or grammar, or criticize your writing as you write, surrender to it. Tap into your subconscious and capture what your little voice is saying. The more you freewrite the easier it becomes. Stick with it and you’ll reap the benefits. Most writers need to practice freewriting multiple times before it feels natural and effective. So be patient.

Transition from Analytical to Creative

Freewriting will help you move from conscious (deliberate) writing to subconscious (automatic) writing. When you achieve success, your words will stream from you without consciously thinking about them.

If you’re usually an analytical thinker, freewriting may sound a little “out there”, and to be honest that was my initial impression. But once you’ve used the freewriting technique a few times you will start to feel more attuned to your creative side. So, don’t knock this creative process until you’ve tried it!

We live in a world of ads, fads and consumer culture. You can’t browse the internet today without being pitched a “brilliant new technique” designed to help you achieve your writing goals. If you’re skeptical about the benefits of freewriting you should consider its history. 

It’s not a new concept. Teachers and writing experts have been advocating the freewriting technique for decades. Dorothea Brande, a teacher, led the way for a succession of writers and academics to refine the freewriting concepts she brought to the forefront.

In 1934 Dorothea Brande wrote “Becoming a Writer”. It’s a writer’s classic that covers writing and the creative process. This was decades before brain research delved into the role of the right and left brain. Dorothea taught her students how to still their minds and call forth their inner writer. In her book she advises readers to sit and write for 30 minutes every morning, as fast as they can.

For decades popular culture has touted that logical, methodical and analytical people are left-brain dominant, while creative and artistic types are right-brain dominant. The myth has since been debunked. Scientists did a series of tests that showed participants used their entire brain equally throughout the course of the experiments, rather than using different brain hemispheres for analytical vs. creative tasks. Source: Live Science

In the mid-seventies, Peter Elbow advanced freewriting in his book “Writing Without Teachers”. He advocated non-stop or free uncensored writing, without editorial checkpoints, followed by the editorial process at a later stage. His approach was aimed at writers who get stuck or blocked.

In 1986 Natalie Goldberg released her first book about for writers “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within” which brought together Zen meditation and writing in a new way. Her First Thoughts approach involved keeping your hand moving and not crossing out. The goal is to just get your words onto the paper.

Probably the most well-known book that incorporates freewriting is “The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity” by Julia Cameron, which was first published in 1992, and a 25th Anniversary edition is now being sold.

Author Mark Levy taught writing at Rutgers University, and in 2010 published “Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content”. He used freewriting for years to solve all types of business problems and to generate ideas for books, articles, and blog posts.

I’m showcasing these freewriting advocates as an example of how this successful writing technique has endured for nearly 100 years, and enable you to investigate the topic in more detail.

Can Nonfiction Writers use Freewriting?

Although freewriting is used extensively by fiction writers, it’s also an extremely useful tool for nonfiction writers. 

No matter what type of writer you are, sometimes you’re going to to struggle with how to start a new chapter of your book, or get in the right head-space to write your next blog article. 

Freewriting helps you brush away the analytical cobwebs and forces your mind to rely more heavily on your creative side.

Why I use freewriting as a pre-writing technique

Writing travel guides and nonfiction books is a methodical and analytical exercise. There’s a lot of research and fact-checking to be done, and then there’s the structural organization of the content. All of these activities rely on systematic thinking. But your words also need to leap off the page to connect with your audience. In order to achieve this you need to create content that evokes an emotional reaction in your reader.

It is all too easy to get stuck in an educational or informational rut when writing nonfiction. As soon as you tap into the inspirational side of a topic you create content that is multi-dimensional.

My introduction to freewriting

I was first introduced to this technique in Turkey, in a writer’s class I regularly attend. During the sessions we used writing prompts and 20-minute freewriting bursts to release creative narratives. I’m a nonfiction author and initially I kept my freewriting activities firmly ring-fenced within my creative writing classes. 

During these sessions I was able to write more prolifically and I learnt how to use freewriting to overcome writer’s block. It also forced me to connect more closely with the prompt topics, so my writing had more depth.

It didn’t take me long to realize how beneficial it would be to apply this successful writing technique to my nonfiction activities. So now I use freewriting to approach the seven different travel writing challenges I face.

How Travel Writers Self-Publish Podcast Ep#3: How to improve your Travel Writing by FreeWriting

Let’s delve a little deeper into the dynamics of freewriting….

Your Pyramid of Thoughts

Think of these three areas of your mind working together like a pyramid. 

Your conscious mind is at the top, your subconscious is in the middle, and your unconscious mind is the foundational layer at the bottom.

Let’s take a look at each one individually:

1. Your Conscious Mind

When you’re in the present moment your awareness is leveraging your conscious mind. Your conscious mind is aware of external surroundings and some internal mental functions.

2. Your Subconscious Mind

Your subconscious mind, also known as your preconscious mind, consists of accessible information. This is where your recent memories live. 

When you direct your conscious mind to your subconscious you can access stored information. That is the crux of freewriting.

Your subconscious is also the conduit that allows unconscious thoughts to bubble up to your conscious mind.

3. Your Unconscious Mind

Your instinctual drive and the information you can’t access directly from your conscious mind lives in your unconscious. 

During your early years you acquire countless memories and experiences that have created who you are today. 

You can’t recall most of these early memories because you’ve either repressed them or forgotten them. But the beliefs, habits, and patterns you established as a child are there in your unconscious mind, and they are what drive your adult behaviors.

In summary:

• Freewriting brings subconscious and unconscious thoughts into your conscious mind, so that you can capture them on paper. 
• Your conscious mind can’t access your unconscious thoughts directly, so it needs to use your subconscious as a conduit.

When to use Freewriting

Morning, Noon or Night

Use the freewriting technique whenever you need it. Start your day with a session to get your writing muscles warmed up. Freewrite throughout the day to energize your writing. Or end your day with a freewriting session to capture your dormant thoughts.

Freewriting allows you to subconsciously explore a train of thought. It takes you in a direction your conscious mind might not have dared to venture. Some of your thoughts will lead to a dead end, but others will trigger an idea that you can expand into a fully fledged article. When you use freewriting as a pre-writing technique, you create a plethora of ideas to pull from before you start writing your writing assignment.

The act of timed non-stop writing forces your mind to form new ideas. When you start capturing these on paper, your creative juices allow your ideas to flow. This stream of ideas will move you through any writing challenge you face. 

Have you tried freewriting for your nonfiction or fiction projects?

If you want to explore freewriting as part of your nonfiction toolkit, there’s more information and inspiration here.