On Freewriting
On Freewriting
Freewriting is a writing exercise intended for people like me--people whose internal editor is so critical that they often struggle to get the words on the page, because they are too busy improving everything. The idea is that by setting the timer and making myself write constantly--regardless of grammar, spelling, word choice, and ability to remain on topic--that I can retrain myself to be less critical of my work. If I use freewrites in conjunction with an idea for a story, it will get enough bits and pieces out there that it will inspire me to keep going and finish the story, instead of spending hours trying to get the next sentence right. Believe me, I really do do that at times, even though I know better.
Image from user Mediamodifier on Pixabay
But freewrites were never intended as something to be shared with the world in their raw state. They are meant as a predraft. A predraft means that it is a pile of notes and bits and pieces that are rougher even than your first draft. If you are doing the exercise right, this predraft will be a real mess--filled with typos, spelling errors, lines saying you can't think of anything, and extreme deviations from the topic you are writing about.
It isn't anywhere near a story's first draft, but if you are lucky, it will contain lots of bits and pieces that you can shape and mold into parts of your first draft. You'll need to add a lot in between, but perhaps it builds you an image of your main character. Perhaps it provides some useful world-building background. Or maybe it gives you some essential plot points. Once in a while, if you are lucky, there are some gems of sentences that can make it all the way to the final draft with limited changes.
By going through your freewrite and finding all the "valuable" bits with story potential, you teach your internal editor that it is overly critical. It learns that by allowing you to write more "junk," you really get more usable story pieces than it gets by limiting you. Unfortunately, many people miss this step, which is really important if you want to become a better writer.
Writing freewrites regularly without this step can help get your creative juices flowing, but won't help you become a better writer. It can, in fact, have a negative impact, if you focus too much on freewriting and too little on honing your craft and improving your writing. Good writers need to find the right balance in their internal editors that enables them to get quality drafts to hone further with their peer review group or editor. A tendency to accept the result of freewrites as "good enough" can hinder this development.
Used properly, freewriting can be a very beneficial exercise. There are also lots of other types of writing exercises that can help with other writing challenges. It's important not to get too focused on one type, but to work on all your weaknesses as a writer.
Writing Exercises on Steem
I see a great benefit in sharing ideas for writing exercises with other writers on Steem. However, when it comes to posting the intermediate results of those exercises, there are several important points to keep in mind.
The Blockchain is permanent. Anything you post to the Steem blockchain (the force behind the steemit.com front-end that is most used) is saved for as long as humanity and the technology exists. If your goal is to become a good writer and to get routine income from your writing, at some point you will want to make the leap to the mainstream, be it with an agent or publisher or through a magazine or journal. You might be lucky that some of those will evaluate you only on the quality of the draft you submit along with the accompanying materials. With magazines or journals, that might work. But if you are going for an agent or a publisher, they will be looking at your marketing potential as well as the quality of the one piece they get to look at. And they will assume you will have done a heck of a lot of work getting that one piece ready for them, so they'll be curious about what else you've written.
If you work your Steem profile properly, it can act as a marketing advantage for you, by showing a number of people already reading your work that would be likely to be interested in your magnum opus. These people are going to assume that anything you publish on your Steem blog, since Steem is a type of publishing, is something you consider "fit for public perusal." If you've published your raw freewrites, these error-filled posts will be part of what you are judged by. It would be best if these publishers, agents, and editors found only work you really could be proud of.
Even if your intention is to self-publish, your readers may look you up. In today's society, googling before buying is very common. Reading pieces filled with flaws might make them disinclined to purchase your book.
If you are looking at Steem as a generic blog, as opposed to thinking of it as a future writing portfolio, you still need to think about your followers and what image you project to the world. Any top blogger will tell you how important it is to respect your followers and be careful what you put out. Too many sloppy and unedited posts can cost you followers and they may not be easy to win back.
I take great risks on my own blog regularly, because I jump from topic to topic. I am very aware that posting photography can cost me readers who want fiction and writing articles. Posting fiction and writing articles can cost me followers who are only interested in my photography. When I get into dog articles and craft articles, it can cost me even more. It's a risk I've decided to accept, because I am who I am. But it is important that everyone make these choices knowingly. In an ideal world, I'd have different accounts for these different interests, but with my health problems, I just don't have the energy for that.
But I still worry about the quality of what I post to my blog. I have regretted some of my earlier color challenges, where I got carried away by the idea of building community and posted photography that wasn't as good as I'd like to be remembered for. But I've learned from that. As for my writing, I always run it through my peer review group or ask a few trusted friends (trusted in that I know they'll be honest with me when something sucks as opposed to just saying nice things) to look things over. And I have that overly-critical internal editor on my side also.
Freewriting, like other exercises, is part of your "homework" as a writer. It's among the chores you do to help you on your way. Your teacher, if you have one, might need to see it. You might share it privately with a small peer review group who is helping you on your journey. But generally you don't benefit from plastering your error-filled math or English homework all over the Internet where everyone can see it.
I know some people will say that doing freewrites builds community, but you can build community without publishing the raw material on Steem. Do your freewriting then do the rest of the exercise--turn it into a story. Then publish it--as a story--with a hat tip to the freewriting prompt. Once you've turned your predraft into a rough draft, you can bring it on by The Writers' Block and we'll help you hone and polish that draft. If you're stuck before the draft state, come in and ask people to brainstorm with you. We love a good brainstorm.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://gmuxx.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/twb3-1.jpg)
My friend steve Abbott was one of the first writers I met when I was first starting, He didn't call it a free write. What he called it was 'the vomit phase,' because 'it's like throwing up, it's better to get it all out of your system, but it's not something other people are going to want to look at."
Steve's a weird guy.
You should introduce him to Rhonda. ;-)
Just a couple days ago I said this:
"I mean, sometimes you have to throw up. It's natural. And you feel better afterward. But for god's sake, you don't throw a house party to have everyone from the hood come over and look at the floaters in your toilet."
Just spit out my drink LOL...
You're mixing your metaphors here. "Floaters" is generally accepted as a term for poop that floats, not vomit.
It’s also a term for those little black spots in your vision that won’t go away, usually an indication of ocular disease. Either way, nothing desirable. Oh… And it’s also a term for decomposing bodies that rise from the bottom of lakes, rivers, and oceans.
Also bird decoys and fun pool toys. I guess "floaters" is just one of those words.
Freewriting is a wonderful tool. It opens up a lot of avenues for creativity and even therapy. However, writing is a craft and once you have the bones down, it's time to pull out the rest of the tools from the kit and get to work. Freewriting is like priming the pump, the hard work comes later.
Hmm. I absolutely agree with all of this. Freewriting is something I never did naturally, and as such it was a good exercise to learn to let go more. Just like in painting really. But still it's not where my joy of writing comes from.
I like how you keep raising the standards, both of your own work and the people in the community. Very inspiring to read about such dedication to writing as a craft.
This is a great write up, Bex. I couldn't agree more. Freewriting is valuable, in its proper place and context. But spitting words or into a page isn't teaching you anything if that is all you'll keep doing.
Hugs
Thanks, @bex-dk, for sharing this helpful discourse on the benefits and perils of freewriting, and also for sharing your heart with us.
I also enjoy the blessing/curse of having a very wide range of interests. Among them, I do love to write, and all too often overthink the things that I write. Perhaps I will try some "freewriting" with one or two of my more creative concepts, and see what falls out.
But thank you also for the caution against publishing a pre-draft. ;)
As one who does not necessarily want to make a career of writing, perhaps doing so would be less of a black eye for me; nevertheless, your cautionary remarks are well-taken.
😄😇😄
![@creatr](https://steemitimages.com/DQmWvzuqZ51DoiSjXXf8bukb7JeeVV1eAJJhGBkDiYc8ajj/creatr_ap.gif)
Even if you don't want to make a career of writing, someone as talented as yourself could make a nice income with it as a hobby. You've got the quality to go mainstream.
Thank you my friend. I appreciate your encouragement! :D
It was nice meeting you on Discord. I see you have very detailed informative posts on your blog. More so than many I have come across. You have gained a follower and I hope you get something from my content as well. I hope your day goes how you choose it too.
This is so beautifully written! That makes a statement in an of itself. You are a talented and practiced writer and blogger, @bex-dk, and it really shows in how you presented the ideas in this post.
You know I love you and fully respect your mission. I'm amazed by all that you do for The Writers Block community. In terms of philosophies on writing, I think we are 99% aligned. So this is perhaps the 1% difference, which I will share with much deference. It is only my personal (and likely flawed) point of view.
"If your goal is to become a good writer" is one of the key phrases in this post, I think. Every bit of this message applies to us, and I'm so glad you shared this knowledge.
I think there is a long and well-populated continuum between professional writers and the sniveling weasels who are here to suck the juice out of Steemit without contributing any real value. And from what I have seen, there are many in that middle space who a) have a good heart, b) have no idea what to post or how to contribute, and don't even know how to find a voice, and c) discover surprisingly fresh and beautiful words within themselves through the freewrite vehicle. They don't want to become good writers; that's not a goal or even a nugget of an idea. They just want to share something of themselves and find a way to get on the Steemit train.
I almost think it would be less controversial if it was called something other than freewrite, which is a notorious tool for helping Writers shove that bitchy inner editor aside. Maybe "microblog-generator". I think it's mostly a helper tool for people who might otherwise be flapping about in the wind, not contributing anything at all, or worse--spending their days writing "Nice post" everywhere.
Since Steemit is a decentralized community that operates on voting, my humble opinion is that we just shouldn't upvote any of the microblog posts that are pure maird.
Here is something I'm pondering. Would it be better for Steemit and for those of us who truly produce quality content and focus on upvoting quality content if all the people who produce mediocre/crappy content stopped? (Or slowed the frick down, and took the time to revise and polish everything they wrote before posting?) Or would it be worse for the reward pool?
I don't have an answer. I don't understand the machine well enough. I yodel in the direction of my brother-in-law, @preparedwombat. He studies cryptocurrency, blockchain, Steemit and valuation in depth. He also posts a huge variety of things, including posts on Steem value, biographical info, political statements, meme challenges, and yes--some freewrite pieces. Maybe he has something to add here.
"c) discover surprisingly fresh and beautiful words within themselves through the freewrite vehicle. " I think this is a worthy goal. The aim after that should be to take what you have found through the medium of the freewrite and polish it into something, whether that be an article, a poem, a story, a script, an informative blog post. There are so many options. The good news is that there are people around who are willing and able to help brainstorming, crafting and polishing.
I agree, @thinknzombie. I really do. Raw, unedited material really shouldn't be published anywhere... unless, perhaps... it comes out the gate in a nice form (which it very often can), it fits into its own new little genre (which in this case it does), and it suits a community of people on this de-centralized platform where the community is the arbiter of what matters. A lot of people hated rock and roll when it emerged as an art form, and wouldn't acknowledge it. (I'm really sorry if anyone bristles at that comparison!) There are other examples in the art world throughout time where a different form of expression emerged and was roundly lambasted, but a community grew up around it and appreciated it nonetheless.
Let me think of a better example. Let's pretend for a moment that someone on Steemit decided to post a pet picture and call it art. It's just an unedited picture of Fluffy. But then others began to do the same, all tagging their raw, unedited pictures of their cats and dogs and bunnies, just doing what they do, with a "pet-art" tag and no other content. What if they all created a community, commented on the pictures, upvoted each other and felt really excited about it, and finally felt like they had something to contribute. They didn't spend any time setting up a scene, making sure there's no red eye, editing the lighting, etc., like a real photographer would. The fact is, their goals are different from a real photographer, and the raw picture that took a nanosecond to snap is all they've got. I don't know, should the real photographers police them, tell them they should stop, downvote them? I think it's an interesting philosophical question.
Again, what I wonder at the end of the day is whether something like this generates Steem and helps support the reward pool. I just don't know whether it helps or hinders. Do you know?
Love and hugs.
"Again, what I wonder at the end of the day is whether something like this generates Steem and helps support the reward pool. I just don't know whether it helps or hinders. Do you know?"
Do you mean "generates Steem" as a cutesy way of taking the idiom "generates steam" as in drives the platform, or do you mean literally, "generates Steem"? Because if it's the latter, no, none of anyone's content literally does that. The Steem is all generated by the witness machines at a set rate of 1 Steem every 3 seconds.
If you meant metaphorically, I think the answer is a resounding "yes". Here on Steemit, we have a community of mostly content creators, a few significant curators, and even fewer pure audience members. The structure of Steem is such that there's no financial incentive to be an audience member, and no financial incentive to attract an audience member who isn't also a successful creator or curator. Building a community of writers who are enjoying each others' writing and welcoming more people into that community with a relatively low barrier to entry is a prime example of how that high creator:consumer ratio can work. Otherwise you have an ecosystem of thousands of creators vying for the attention of a very few mercurial whales whose only claim to fame is their accumulation of wealth, and who may not have the best interests of a vibrant fiction community in mind.
Furthermore, I would much rather read someone's 5 minute freewrite than a 5th article about what happened with bitcoin today. Or a copypasta.
Furtherfurthermore, I was first introduced to freewriting in college, through writing down the bones and a friend. We would meet in a cafe, do a freewrite, and then simply read aloud what we had written, listening without comment or criticism. This is what that is, but with an online community.
Furtherfurtherfurthermore, isn't part of the point of decentralization that we no longer have to contend with gatekeepers? Aren't we done with folks in power determining what is and isn't art? Taken to its illogical extreme, are we condemning the entire self-publishing industry? Those writers are often far too prolific to be spending much time, though certainly more than a freewrite, on editing. One can always edit, but at some point you release it. So this is one extreme. And at the other extreme is a single slim volume that takes a lifetime to complete. Neither is wrong. Both will find an audience.
Furtherfurtherfurtherfurthermore, I have nothing here, I just wanted to make that word.
In conclusion, nyan cat.
Hi guys, good discussion here.
Thanks for gently setting me straight about Steem/steam, @improv. I went looking for an answer that helps me ask the question I was trying to ask, which I realize is this: Do communities that grow up around a particular type of content support the increase in Steem value that we are all hoping for? I think they do: https://steemit.com/steem/@taskmaster4450/steem-token-unit-stu-when-a-usd-is-not-a-usd-plus-the-damn-is-breaking-in-active-users.
I have read all of the discussion here. I hope it doesn't get any more heated than it already is. This is all great stuff to talk about, but I am personally out if discussion turns to fight. Not only am I a peacekeeper by nature, but I care deeply about everyone involved in this philosophical debate.
I have a few final thoughts before I bow out, sweetly, into that good night.
First, I just want to say that I did not weigh in here to convince anyone of my point of view, but to share an additional perspective. Philosophical discussions become fights when someone needs to win. Does anyone need to win? (Rhetorical question.)
If anyone reads my posts, you know that I care deeply about quality fiction. It is my personal value that high quality fiction matters, and that it's important for those of us who have a bit of knowledge to give some love and nurturing to those who really want to better themselves.
That said, I also think any creative endeavor/genre is going to have a vast range of ideas and values about what it is and about what is worthy. Poetry is one example. I can write Haiku in three minutes. It would take me five minutes to write a limerick. I add ellipses here to let your imagination run wild regarding value, worthiness, and whether those items I just called "poetry" measure up to others in their genre, or to sonnets, free verse, and the wildly diverse types of poetry you see here on Steemit.
In other words, we can debate all day what "poetry" is and whether all the things that are called poetry (on and off of Steemit) belong under that same umbrella, and also whether those people are doing themselves a favor or disservice by posting small or unpolished bits and calling them poetry. Is it good? Good enough? Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? What would Allen Ginsberg or Jack Kerouac have thought of all this?
I believe it's a similar thing with fiction. If someone who has no idea how to write a story spends five minutes writing "She sat down at the computer to do her first freewriting exercise... to keep her hand moving, to see if she could make something worthy of posting that day. But she felt frozen, staring at the glow of the terminal as petrified as fossilized stone," (I just made that up) and then posted that and called it "fiction"... and then the little community spawned by that type of writing welcomed her and patted her on the back for her little fledgling effort, well maybe it is a type of fiction. She wrote a mini story and shared it, fresh and hot off the press, from her heart. It's not the type of fiction I'm writing, and that person most likely isn't the next Douglas Adams or Sue Grafton, and in my imagined scenario has no desire to be. But she is working within her milieu, trying something, and being in community. And communities are the foundation of our platform.
That is all I am saying. These views are my own, and do not represent the views of any other entity or writing community. Love and hugs.
Love and hugs right back. Thanks for holding the middle position. Live and let live, I think. And love and let love.
And sometimes the things that come out of freewrites I read sound like Douglas Adams. Not often, but occasionally.
So much of building is about making welcoming spaces. Two things up. And by things, autocorrect means thumbs.
And live and let love.
Nobody is saying it can’t be published on Steemit. I think the general argument is that if you have any pride in your work product whatsoever, you just won’t. What goes onto the blockchain can be googled forever. For many, it may end up being the same as those girls-gone-wild photos they let people take at 17, when at 27, those pictures resurface and not only embarrass the shit out of them, but prevent them from getting jobs, relationships, and respect. I think this is something folks need to consider .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_writing
From the link above: "The writing does not have to be done with pen and paper. A technique known as Freeblogging combines blogging with free-writing with the rules changed so that the writer does not stop typing for long periods of time. The end result may or may not be shared with the public. "
And I'm not sure the distinction between "can't" and "shouldn't" is measurable in this circumstance. Clearly even spam posts CAN be shared on the blockchain. We agree that they SHOULDN'T be shared.
And, I want to be respectful, but when you say, "if you have any pride in your work product whatsoever, you just won’t", you assert something unjust and insulting. If you didn't mean to be insulting, feel free to correct your semantics. If you did, why? How are you the arbiter of what folks can take pride in? I'm sure you can do the exercise of making analogies in your head that apply best to how you'd feel if the tables were turned.
I'm sure you're a very nice person, but the original post, and your defense of it here both smack of folks setting themselves up as the gatekeepers. I'm in Hollywood. A gatekeeper is not someone who says, "You CAN'T." At least not since the rise of youtube and digital video. It's someone who says, "You will find no success." and "what you're doing is wrong." (and who then has the power to make that true regardless)
There has to be some measure of quality control in any creative medium that is marketed for public consumption. And there has to be someone who retains some degree of pride in the art. This is an argument not even worth making. It is self-evident.
I’m not overly worried about freewriting on Steemit. To me, it’s just another form of shitposting. I believe the market will set a fair value for it eventually. I am, however, worried about all the starry-eyed writers who may not be hearing both sides of the story. Someone has to speak up and let them know the consequences of publishing permanently on the blockchain. Anyone with a sense of pride is going to want only the very best of their work publicly searchable until the end of time, or until the end of technology and the Internet as we know it.
I believe people are being very shortsighted about Steem, and its permanence. I know that personally, as a publisher, I would think twice if I Googled a particular author and got a whole bunch of hits that amounted to sloppy, first draft writing. I would question whether or not that author cared about their brand, or my brand. And they would have to produce for me a truly exceptional piece of work for me to be able to forget the reams of junk posts they previously took it upon themselves to publish.
I think fledgling writers need to hear the other side of this. So as long as people keep posting substandard work and calling it fiction, I am going to keep talking about why that may not be such a great idea.
Wow.
Well I guess I'll back away from this conversation. You have very strong opinions that I think are about as far from what I believe to be the truth as you can get. We can agree that Steem is here it stay and that's about it.
I don't think your success, my success, the success of others posting freewrites, and the success of Steemit are even remotely mutually exclusive, and I honestly wish you good luck.
I guess I'll add one thing that I don't think you realize. Worrying about permanence, in this case of the blockchain, is not particularly new. For a very long time, "If it's been on the internet once, it's still on the internet somewhere." has been the rule most internet users know to be true.
@bex-dk this post was presented at the most recent Pimp Your Post Thursday on the Steemit Ramble Discord. I have written a post to share your featured post. Just stopping back to let you know that you can see your name in lights right here. (Just kidding about the lights :)
I believe you, I'm the same. and yeah, freewrite solved this problem for the stories I write in them.... Well, most of them are not as good as the stories I spend long time on.
Good idea.. but I think I'll stick to what I do now for a while.
That's why I said just for a while... I know the freewrites aren't good enough... I just post them to be remembered as "tries" rather than an actual work.
Maybe that's why I publish anything that I'm not sure it's good... for people to see the gradual improvement rather than the "Awesome" result. I know this will likely decrease the number of followers. But as hobbyist writer I write mostly for fun.
"I know this will likely decrease the number of followers. But as hobbyist writer I write mostly for fun."
I'm not sure that's true. My follower count has grown steadily since I began posting freewrites. People like to see works in progress. Behind the scenes content is fun for audiences.
Well, I love to see works in progress too. But I thought people who like that are few. Thanks for telling me.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, @bex-dk! I needed permission to go through this phase of the writing process. I am one of those peeps who try to get that next sentence just right and in the process lose my story line :) Also great advice on how to use the mess you make.
It's a great tool, but do remember to do something with it, or it might not be so effective training your internal editor the way it needs to be trained!