Build a Productive Writing Habit with Freewriting 

There are some writers with ADHD or other factors affecting them and their ability to establish habits, let alone methodically plan their writing. Freewrting can be very helpful for them when all they need to do is put their racing mind to paper.

Free writing is how I grew my writing. Now, I can express myself eloquently, be able to express emotions through it, and express myself in a way that someone understands.

You got me to write for the first time in years. Thank you. Truly, thank you.

16:13: "The basic idea, though, is this: great writing is the product of great revision, not great drafting." ❤

I write every morning in my coffee nook before heading off to work. I say what I want and need to say, letting it spill out over 2 or 3 pages. It grounds and centers me, and readies me for the day ahead.

I've been stuck, almost paralysed, to start writing anything daily - despite seeing it's an essential discipline to make any headway creatively. This was a fantastic tip though. I opened up one of many empty notebooks and just started out by describing what I was doing by freewriting and then let my thoughts wander to ideas I wanted to explore. It was hard to not write - a bit like a staring contest. But after a page my mind was starting to let out new ideas that I probably wouldn't have thought of. I just hope no-one else ever gets to read this stuff. I've been keen to use fountain pens and it's really shone a light on the good/bad qualities of each one I own. Unfortunately,, my prized pen isn't so great to write with. I also ended up with really numb fingers after writing for 25 mins non stop.

I am a master procrastinator. I have (what I think is) a great idea for a story and I've been thinking about it a lot. How to get started, in particular. I got a new pen (sorry otherwise I'd have been all over that link) and a nice empty A5 pad for Christmas. Thank you for giving me a nudge. I might actually start with some free writing with a key idea in my head. As my son would say: let's go!

This video came to me just when I needed it. I started to write not long ago and felt this notion of "it has to sound better and more intelligent, why can't I do it?" I was getting in my head too much and this video gave me what I needed. Thank you Andrew

Doing my first English journal (its my second language) and I really can't find the balance of just writing everything down even though I made my own structure in my head. But just like you said "there are no rules and restrictions" and yeah its a good way of not knowing the time has passed.

Thanks Dr. B. Earlier this week I began the habit of free writing every day. I really felt like I was giving some structure to my thoughts. Today I read some of the writings and boy oh boy was it structurally atrocious. So I made an outline of how it should look, and now I'll go back to the grind. Thanks so much for your work. I always wanted to start writing essays and stories, but your channel is what pushed me into doing it.

I have got to get me one of those bolt action pens! Cool design. "...by freewriting you give yourself a relatively quick and painless way to produce copious amounts of material to revise". I needed to hear that! I have been overthinking my first drafts something terrible and worried about where it will all end up in the final product.

Thanks for your all videos. I'm not a native English speaker, so I always have trouble in writing and speaking. Your videos help me a lot not only in writing but also teach me to enjoy reading English literature.❤

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron features freewriting in the morning as a tool to gain back creativity. She refers to this activity as morning pages.

I used to do something similar every day as a way of processing my thoughts in the morning, typing stream-of-consciousness for thirty minutes with no stops or edits. I called it incinewriting because at the very end I would delete everything without looking back over it. I did this nearly every day for about three years, and I noticed that with the other writing I did during that time, my words became less precious to me, which made it far easier to revise and finish the pieces in a timely manner. I can’t say I would recommend the practice to anyone who wants an actual record of the work they’ve done, but it served me well up until the day my son was born, at which point the practice stopped, and I never wrote again for the rest of my life THE END

This is gold.

This video was truly helpful! I have a severe case of writer's block!

There's an article about you on the Ohio State University website, and it uses the word "plethora" and it made me chuckle and think about this video.

Thank you very much, Andrew. This video is just in time for me. I am currently writing my PhD thesis but suffer from perfectionism and progress slowly. I am going to try free writing right away today.

I really appreciate how to -the-point and easy to understand your videos are. Thanks for putting your thoughts out here!!

What a lovely presentation. Enjoyed it tremendously.

Thank you. It's an idea to test. The final text is wonderful, btw.

I just want to say thank you. I have struggle with my writing skill even with simple tasks. The way you explain is so easy to understand for me. Sorry for my bad English. Anyway, thank you so much.

This is inspiring 🙌 can't to do this myself and with my kids 😃

the extreme expressiveness of your face movements has captured my cat's attention

I needed to hear this today, thanks. It's something I'm constantly trying to remind myself of but sometimes fail to remember. not sure if this is a good example but reading Haruki Murakami's work has actually helped me a lot, there are issues I have with his portrayal of women, but I really love his writing style. I love it's simplicity and casual surrealism. it has a lot of elements of my own personal writing style and made my way of writing feel a bit more validated, gave me a bit of a "oh, so its actually okay to write like this" moment. Also, since I didn't comment on your previous video, I wanted to say: I'm very glad to finally know Kaput Mortuum's name. Great guy. We need his light in the world.

Thank you sir andrew

Thanks! really learning from your videos, well I like to think so. I haven't looked through your library of videos, but have you covered where to get feedback from others? I imagine reddit if I'm not IP banned, but where else can a person get constructive criticism? Regardless, thanks! and im liking this exercise a lot.

The "you might want a new pen to start freewriting in style" segue was very smooth. I was actually thinking something along those lines. I actually spend a lot of time thinking about what stationary I want to use for different things. Sadly I often spend less time using stationary than I spend researching it. Do you have any advice for people that let fiddling with stationary distract them from using their stationary?

this is a new insight for me as novice writer. Thank you for your valuable advice. All The best :)

Would you agree that as you work through revisions, and become a more talented writer, the piece of clay you make during free writing becomes more refined naturally?

I'm always trying to improve my writing and your videos are full of great ideas! Thank-you so much.

Wait! I just realized the way you talk reminds me of the guy from ATV Television here on youtube. That's the familiarity I could feel.

Thank you for the encouragement --

Really interesting, I've been starting to do this by myself more and more often over the last years, without knowing that it has a name and is used as a technique by actual writers😂 I do think it has helped me to write poetry more easily. Also it is quite interesting at times to flip through old notebooks and come across the occasional nugget of gold hidden in the gibberish 😂

Thanks!

I have brutal depresson (have had for about two decades now), and I have ADHD personality traits. I wouldn't say I struggle with being able to freewrite, and my 60 drafts in Medium are a testiment to that, but the battle between producing polished, carefully crafted writing and just spouting off about whatever my fingers feel like clacking out on the keyboard is an ongoing warzone in my mind. Should I spend x amount of hours polishing this one idea and revising something, clarifying my thinking to the best of my ability? Or should I just muddle through it as sloppy as it turns out to be and move on to the hundred other ideas swirling in my head? Having a goal or clear values helps a lot, but when you don't care about anything and you seemingly don't have a dopamine system to drive you toward anything, when nothing grips you (or perhaps everything grips you the same amount), what do you do?! It's brutal. It's a wonder I get pants on every day to be perfectly honest. A part of the problem is that I'm terrified of being vulnerable and exposing a more raw version of myself. People judging my real self is an extremely uncomfortable thing that I find no value in. (yeah, I'm sure it's some sort of cognitive fallacy.) Find value. I guess that's what it's about though ay? I shouldn't write thinking of other people--or rather, my audience should be me. Maybe? Gosh that sounds weird... but so does writing for a bunch of strangers who probably couldn't be bothered about who I am as a person ha. The topic itself certainly doesn't care if it's written about or not. I guess I'm just taking this opportunity to freewrite for a second.

But what if I really do often say “plethora?”

❤❤❤

thanks for

I have a research paper coming up in a humanities class and this was actually really helpful Edit: I think my biggest concern with freewriting is repetition. If I’m only writing in my own voice, I feel like I’m bound to reuse common words/phrases. Do you have any advice for this?

Hii! this isnt really related to the video, but im currently in secondary school in the uk and im scared for my english literature exams, as i cannot understand poems for the life of me! I try practice as often as possible, but nothing seems to be working ;-; I need helpppp, poems are so tricky :(

Can't recommend text-based roleplay enough. Great way to learn how to write sentences in pleasing ways.

Andrew read something in one of the poetry videos that is now a brainworm but I dont remember the video. Something like "mane-feathered starburst"-anyone mind pointing me back to that video? I seem to remember that it was an example of describing a dandelion?

Hi Andrew. First time commenter here. Hope you're doing well. Are you familiar with "Writing Down the Bones" by Natalie Goldberg? A large part of the book is about freewriting.

While I havent written much lately, I remember when I finally internalized this kind of practice. For my autistic ass, it was and still is tremendously difficult. Its better to just get words on a page than none at all. This should be done to everyones wants and needs, and for me its simply writing without regard for what I write. Id drop time constraints and just scribble for as long as I can. I once fought against my voice cause I tend to be verbose, but I like that, I want that. I shirked away from it cause it feels unacceptable. Ive just gotta refine how verbose I am, Im the kinda of weirdo to use plethora or modicum in normal conversation and I get raised eyebrows a lot. Im working through a lot of scripting every day to try and be more understandble. But since Ive found myself more interested in lyrcism than simply narrative storytelling, Ill channel my inner Aesop Rock and hit folks with a veritable thesaurus.

Is there any doubt as to whether the point of Freewriting is To Bolster The Brain, and that people who DON'T Freewrite not only are worse off AS WRITERS, but they comparatively have Less Valuable Brains? In that vein, a Freewriter is expected to be more likely to agree with the statement: "'Discipline' is 'Discipline To One's Own Brain [a "brain" being "a pool" from which one "draws out" one's potential, although such "a brain" also comes as "a Package Deal" with the concept that It May Also Exist PHYSIOLOGICALLY - as an organ of the body within the skull]'". This being said, I personally agree with the sentiment that Freewriting is the difference between children and adults, and I often rely on nothing more than the sense of security "to which the value of the metaphorical 'currency' of Freewriting's Benefit is 'pegged'", sometimes going so far as to believe that this Benefit is the only objective truth which can be proven but doesn't need proving, that it is The First in any list of meritable acts: that it is pretty much "something magical", and that anything which can luxurify the process of Freewriting is indeed worth fighting for. That's why it's controversial to have mentioned a material object in this video. Now, with Everyone as my witness, we have established that the Object Of Our Interest (which we are wont to attempt to obtain at any cost) is INDEED a material good. What's next? Will I dare to mention its name? Will we be able to find it? Is there any doubt as to whether Freewriting is a Phase of Civilizational Evolution WHICH IS PERMANENT (and is most certainly "non-cyclical")? This is all we've got standing in the way of the extremists: an inocuous trend where some guy and a writing utensil promise to take up an Icarian Mission to one day measure up to the pioneers of the Mandarin writing system (before failing to save

I have tried freewriting, but problem is that I get bored of writing "I don't know what to write. Weather is pleasant. No rain. So boring to not have idea what to write. Why I need to write for two minute? This is nonsense! AaaaaaaIi don't know what to write. I am bit hungry. " every day 😂

Ball point pens ARE always inferior. But I love the video otherwise.

I love the video! I freewrite very regularly, especially when working on creative projects. It’s really enjoyable to me, and I find I get some really good ideas out when I’m just putting down whatever concept I can think of in the moment. But only up to a certain point. I’m looking for advice on freewriting for larger projects… I’ve tried writing novels with pretty robust outlines, but always find that I get too stuck and simply don’t continue writing (or even start!) because I get too overwhelmed by what I have to do. Same kind of goes for when I try to freewrite, and just hit a certain wordcount… but it definitely gets me further than any deliberate planning. But I still stop. It’s like once I get the shape of an idea down, I start thinking too hard, and I never pick it up again. Do you possibly have any advice for this?