Do You Freewrite?

 

Free-writing this morning will be done on the computer. My right elbow does not appreciate being used to make my hand work. Saw an interview with John Irving on French television last night – most interesting. He starts with the end first, then works backwards. Writes his first draft in longhand in a notebook with the left side of the pages always left blank, for insertions, correction, drawing, ideas. Big scrawling letters, no more than fifty-sixty words to a page. A very articulate man, thoughtful, straightforward. I must get one of his more recent novels next time I’m in Calgary. For him, style, or the use of language is paramount. More so than plot or theme. He dismissed Hemingway as boring. Admires Flaubert, Dickens and others who used language beautifully. Shakespeare.

Writing longhand makes him slow down. He writes too quickly on a computer and makes too many mistakes, but I don’t know if he was referring to typos or mistake of a more significant. But the process of writing by hand makes his writing equivalent to the speed of his thoughts, I understood. Perhaps I could try this? But I hardly need anything to slow down my thought processes, which are already at a glacial pace. Although, in this age of climate change, glaciers might be moving faster than my brain.

The second I think about this being seen by others, my mind interrupts and censors. What will they think? How will this be received? If I could get rid of the worry of how I am perceived, things would be smoother, better, faster. So laborious to write, normally, but here I am whizzing along at 100 words a minutes, maybe less, when I don’t think about what I’m saying. But it’s such drivel really. Talked to my daughter a few minutes ago and welcomes the interruption from writing. Always ready to hare off after a distraction. Like a moth around a bright light, I am. Unable to settle for more than a few minutes, so easily bored. The writer’s life is probably the polar opposite of what really suits me but still I persist in thinking I can do it. Free-writing is essential, according to some, but I don’t do it. I forget about it, or perhaps subconsciously I think nothing will help. Either I ram my head directly into the wall that is the act of writing well, or I avoid it altogether.

Read a few old comments just now and they are encouraging. People like to read what’s written in the blog, and so that tells me I can do it. Always relying on the opinion of others. Time to just look inward and satisfy myself first. Well, that is what I do, of course, but I feed off the praise of others. Just read about the woman in the US, Amy something, who has just had her book ‘Tiger Mothers’ or something, published. How to raise children to be successful by not giving in to the current (and longstanding) trend of praising children, building self-esteem through words, letting them choose their own direction, not imposing the discipline of effort on them. She’s been roundly criticized for the perceived cruelty of her parenting style, but her daughters (still teenagers) pronounce themselves happy. One has played at Carnegie Hall already, the results, her mother says, of having been expected to apply herself vigorously to piano. The first hour of practice is the easy part, but parents need to insist on the following two or three!! I could never be a parent like that. And many of her critics couldn’t either. Depends what your aim is: success for your child in what terms? And on what terms? I do agree that there is nothing equivalent to the satisfaction of having really worked for something (and obtaining it, one hopes) and somebody somewhere coined the term ‘authentic happiness’ for the gratification achieved from that.

Ms. Amy Tiger Mom knows all about that, and she’s not wrong, but she is a little too zealous for my taste, and one wonders how her daughters will view their upbringing as they become adults. She’s not concerned with being friends with her children, but how many of us (my generation) can say that? Do I care if my children like me? Damn right. Some of my parenting decisions were driven by a need to be thought of in a positive light, or perhaps more because I just couldn’t say no to them. Do they mean the same thing?

Enough of this exercise for this morning. Maybe now I’ve greased the wheels sufficiently to finish the post that I started a week ago. And the one that I started a week before that. Perfection is impossible, and yet I still chase after it.

Apart from the typos I couldn’t stop myself from correcting, the above is a verbatim free-writing exercise I did a few minutes ago.  For some reason, I resist doing this sort of thing, which many writers recommend as a way to free up creativity and get things rolling.  I thought it would be fun to see what kind of a discussion it generates.  I also think it’s a coward’s way out of writing a new post. 

Do you freewrite?   What’s your ‘process’ when you write for your blog?  Does it differ when you write other things?  Do you have an established pattern at all?  Why do so many writers just think about writing instead of getting down to the real thing?