Are you someone who hates getting stuck on a paper?
Do you procrastinate—not because you don’t want to write—but because it’s honestly painful to stare at the empty page?
Sometimes the hardest part about any writing assignment is finding the momentum to start from a dead stop. Writing feels like trying to press the gas while your car is stuck in foot-deep mud: pointless. I get stuck — I feel like the next word won’t come out no matter how hard I push.
Lately, I’ve been trying something new that I think has been helping. It’s called freewriting.
In the St. Martin’s Guide to Writing (11th edition), freewriting is defined as “a technique that requires you to stop judging what you write and simply let your mind wander in order to generate ideas freely and creatively.”
Famous writers and composition scholars, like Peter Elbow and Julia Cameron, have championed this technique for a long time.
This is a transcription from my journal that I wrote a couple weeks ago:
I can’t. I just can’t. I have a paper I know I need to do well on and I know I need to write but no matter how long I sit here, the page is just —
Blank.
I hate that blinking little cursor —
| | | | | | | |
Like the professor who’s staring at me in class and all I want is to get by and pass and the empty page is screaming at me through computer glass and why is it that I’m always distracted by ordinary things like the wind in the grass or the way that breeze just blew through open door and, MAN, I better get working and I better do it fast.
And I can write pages and pages in my diary about how much I like going on night walks with my friends but I can’t find anything to say about what I’m in a room learning about for three hours a week.
As soon as it’s me in my room with the hum of the computer and the whir of the fan and the sound of my leg as it chiggers against the desk and the giant Blackboard SUBMIT button and there’s nothing to keep me from it anymore…
I freeze up.
How do I lift a pen whose ink feels like it’s filled with lead?
How do I press down the heavy clicky-clacky keys of a computer with fingers filled with empty thoughts?
ICANTTHINKICANTWRITEICANTDOITICANTICANTICANT
Maybe I’ll just do this a little longer,
I’ll use this stupid ink in this lame pen that I definitely think is way cooler than it is because it’s a fine-tipped fountain pen with shiny black ink that I paid way too much for I’ll use it to FILL the page with fancy, overpaid aggression. I’ll let it pour out and watch the wet part dry and there won’t be any more white screaming at me with its stoney silence and hey the page is almost full. Maybe I can fill up another one. Okay, yeah. One more page. And then I’ll write the dumb assignment.
Thank God; I know when I finish this, I’ll need a nap. And maybe a snack.
I can’t tell you how many pages and notes on my phone have something just like this written down. For me, sometimes giving shape and voice to that gray stuff inside my head can actually silence the negativity. I look at a page of “I can’t do this!” and think, “Right. Now that that’s done, I can get to work.”
To me, the imperfectly written draft is a lot better than perfection that only exists in my mind.
If you’d like help getting those stubborn words out, try free (anger) writing, and then come visit the Writing Studio!
We’re fighting writer’s block, too.