More on Focused Freewriting

One of my lists of Focused Freewriting Questions

As I already discussed in The Amazing Benefits of Freewriting, practicing freewriting on a daily basis can open up writing in a wondrous way. This happens in the best way possible when freewriting is focused on a specific topic or question. The topic or question can be anything that you chose, but the more specific the question the better. Having a broad topic to work on can be more confusing than helpful, but allowing freedom to explore inside a narrowed topic or question allows for discovery that might be surprising and quite enlightening. Here's how I do it...

The Amazing Benefits of Freewriting

There are many tools in a writer's toolbox, but none is as helpful as the simple practice of freewriting. It's something that I picked up in my writing journey, which I used- but never fully appreciated- until I learned how powerful it could really be. This happened after reading the book How to Be a Writer by Barbara Baig. Nearly all her exercises, in the 265 page book, uses different variations of simple freewrite and focused freewriting. After doing several of the exercises, I found that all the freewriting I’d done up to that point was really just a warm-up. I never took it to the next level, because I hadn’t realized I wasn’t doing freewriting nearly enough (it should be done everyday), or even asking the right questions to do focused freewriting.

Book Spotlight: How to Be a Writer

At the beginning of the month I picked up a book that drastically changed my way of thinking as a writer. It is why I took a bit of a hiatus from this blog so that I could focus on the book and what it had to offer. I have to say it has made a significant impact on me. Barbara Baig's How to be a Writer gave me what no other writing book or writing class had given me, permission to explore and experiment in my writing.