The (Most) Ultimate Guide on Freewriting You Ever Met Online

***You have two hours left to write a draft on freewriting for this blog.***

Ella Fitzgerald sings in earphones, my Twitter winks from a comp screen, inviting me to check the latest news, and my strong unwillingness to write the first sentence of this article whispers to drop everything and go for a walk.

What is that?

A burnout? With the topic and complete outline ready at hand, I can’t compile thoughts and start writing. It seems that words don’t want to come.

Procrastination? Laziness? What makes us, people who love their work and life, freeze? What makes it so challenging for me to craft one sentence for this article? It’s about freewriting, c’mon!

The freewriting technique is aimed at helping you get rid of fears and perfectionism, train critical thinking and writing skills, and understand your inner self.

***The clock ticks.***

Wait, what? 100+ words went live in five minutes?

As most articles on productivity and motivation say, if you don’t know what to do — just start doing something. Okay, it’s not a problem to “start something.” (That’s what I’m doing right now — just writing.) The problem is, this “something” will appear lame no one wants and needs reading.

What about research, logical structure, headings, storytelling, visual elements, and all those tiny details engaging the audience and motivating them to keep reading? You don’t think of them while “just writing,” but you understand that your text has nothing when the time comes to edit it.

*** One-hour forty-five minutes left.***

What you’re reading right now is nothing but my freewriting session. If you heard of Mark Levy’s Accidental Genius or Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, you understand what I mean.

If not but want to understand what’s happening here and reveal the power of freewriting, below is your ultimate guide on this technique.

What is Freewriting?

Freewriting is a practice of unceasing writing when you follow the impulses of your mind and allow your thoughts to appear on paper with no prescribed structure, outlines, or edits.

Here goes its short story:

1934: Dorothea Brande represents her book Becoming a Writer suggesting readers spend 30 minutes every morning writing as fast as they can.

1970: Composition specialist Ken Macrorie first mentions the word “freewriting” in his work Uptaught. He represented freewriting as the antidote to Engfish, aka “bloated, pretentious language … in the students’ themes, in the textbooks on writing, in the professors’ and administrators’ communications to each other.”

1981: Peter Elbow’s Writing With Power describes a freewriting technique as the one helping you master the writing art.

2002: Julia Cameron “steals” the idea of morning writings from Dorothea Brande, introducing it as the Morning Pages exercise in her bestselling book The Artist’s Way.

2010: Mark Levy comes and makes freewriting popular. He writes Accidental Genius describing the technique in detail, including 15 practices to master it.

My Relationships With Freewriting

The first time I heard of the freewriting technique was after reading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. The author described the exercise called Morning Pages, saying to start every day by writing three pages of text, and I decided to try it.

I took a pen and a notepad by my pillow, getting ready to write in the morning. (The tiny detail I forgot was I’m a night owl, so it’s an act of true bravery for me to wake up early; let alone the fact I needed to write three pages just after so painful wake-up.)

The results of my first freewriting session weren’t as bad as I expected:

***One hour thirty left to finish this blog post.***

So, I wrote three pages of text every morning, putting on paper everything that came to my mind. It had been running for three days. The fourth one was Sunday, so I decided to sleep a bit longer – and forgot about Morning Pages. The next day, I didn’t find a notepad by my side and had no desire to stand up and look for it right after waking up.

Yeah, I know; irresponsibility and laziness. 

But, c’est la vie.

The next attempt to make friends with freewriting was corresponding online services. I tried 750 Words, supposing that it would be easier for me to free-write at the computer as I spent hours online every day.

It worked! For a few days.

The reasons for my yet another failure were my poor memory (sometimes I forgot to visit the website and write those 750 words) and no chance to take my mind off work (yeah, it’s a so-so excuse, I know). As you’ve probably guessed, I’ve given up the idea of online freewriting services soon.

The final attempt to tame freewriting was a local artist’s workshop in Kyiv. Armed with a pen, notepad, and cappuccino, I went to find out a few alternative freewriting techniques to practice.

Well, the speaker prised freewriting, telling about my good old friends Mark Levy and Julia Cameron and sharing the story about how this technique helped her make plans, brainstorm ideas, deal with stress, and so on and so forth.

She offered a few practices to try:

#1: A 5-minute task: Write about the latest problem you had and how you solved it

Frankly speaking, my mistake was to believe that five minutes could be enough to deal with this task. I forgot that it wasn’t a keyboard but paper! (The last time I practiced fast handwriting was my college years, in the 2000s.)

The result: Time has gone before I finished describing the problem, let alone the solution.

The verdict: 5 minutes are not enough for a productive freewriting session

#2: A 10-minute task: You have three topics; choose one, and write about it

The topics were as follows:

1. You’ve got 100 million dollars. How will you spend it?
2. Start your story with “And what if I was..?”
3. Think of one word or phrase, and start your story with it.

I chose the last one and began my text with the phrase, “Hi, I’m Alice, and I do not exist.” Far from perfect, but it helped me craft a short story I later used for my ghostwritten article and got $50 for it. Not bad, huh?

Verdict: It’s much easier to complete a freewriting session with something logically-written if you have a task (a hook) to refer to, especially if you try to follow at least five rules of freewriting. (They are seven, but I’ll reveal two later in this text):

• Rule #1: Don’t try too hard!
• Rule #2: Write quickly, don’t stop.
• Rule #3: Set strict time frames.
• Rule #4: Write the way you think.
• Rule #5: Develop the idea.

***One hour left***

#3: A 15-minute task: Make a 100 things-to-do list for 2022

It was the most challenging because the trick was to avoid mentioning the same deed twice. I’ve got only 55.

Verdict: If you follow all rules of freewriting, you’ll get tons of ideas for your work and life. But an idea itself costs nothing; its realization is what matters. And freewriting is not a panacea for all burnouts: It’s a technique that can give you hundreds of hooks and plans, but you still need to get them into shape.

I don’t write every day. *wears sackcloth and ashes* For me, freewriting has turned into brainstorming on paper: I practice it when I need to find new writing ideas for my future articles.

Oh, yes! 

Two last rules of freewriting (All seven come from Mark Levy’s Accidental Genius, and he provides each with practical tasks):

Rule #6: Redirect your attention.

• What did I write here?
• What is the different way to tell about it?
• What idea does it relate to?

Rule #7: Lead a discussion on paper.

Choose an interlocutor (Barack Obama or Angelina Jolie, for example) and “talk” to them. What would you ask? What would they reply? Where would your conversation lead?

The Benefits of Freewriting

"Freewriting" refers to short, 10-15-minute sessions of unceasing writing, with no stops for thinking, editing, or grammar checking.

The three most evident benefits of this practice are that it can help with:

1. Creative expression. For many writers, freewriting works as a source of unexpected inspiration. When you have no outlines or other pre-planned details but a rough idea to develop, this writing tactic helps unleash your creativity.
2. Writing speed. Freewriting has no strict forms to follow, so it’s faster than other drafts outlining and creation. You don’t have to follow the rules and organize your thoughts: Just write and then see what you’ve got.
3. Writer’s blocks. Freewriting is not about formal processes, so it may help authors who run out of ideas or experience writer’s block alleviate their anxiety and let themselves be more creative.

Who needs freewriting? Copywriters, journalists, marketers, bloggers, writers, and any creatives working with ideas.

***Thirty minutes left***

What You Need to Start Freewriting

The tools you’ll need for freewriting sessions are a pen, a sheet of paper, and a timer. If you are not a big fan of handwriting, you can use Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or online instruments like CalmlyWriter.

You just open a website and start writing everything that comes into your head right in the browser window.

A few tips to make the process more efficient:

1.  Resist the temptation of editing your text while writing. It’s challenging, but you must separate writing from editing, especially if it’s your freewriting session. You shouldn’t worry about word count, typos, grammar mistakes, sentence structures, etc. Just write. Unleash your creativity and let the ideas flow.
2. Prepare a few writing topics beforehand. It’s not about outlining your freelancing session but having a broad, general idea about what you’ll cover this time. It can help prevent blocks and staring at a page or computer screen and make your writing session more productive.
3. Combine freewriting with traditional outlines. While it can be tempting to complete writing projects through substantive freewriting sessions, quality matters. Depending on what you produce, you might want to craft an outline first — and then address freewriting to cover its points.

Interesting fact: Jack Kerouac claimed he wrote the entire novel On the Road using freewriting techniques. Do you believe it?

When Freewriting Isn’t What It Seems

Some people call freewriting a magic technique that, when done right and practiced regularly, can help beat procrastination, understand problems preventing us from happiness, and so on, and so forth. 

They call it magic because it works for everyone, not only writers. You take a pen, release your subconsciousness, and allow it to tell all your worries to paper. 

Sounds great!

But it’s not about freewriting. There are different methodologies and creative techniques to order your thoughts, and some look like freewriting, although they are not.

So, don’t confuse freewriting with…

***Time’s up! It seems I need another freewriting session to finish this post tomorrow.***

So, here we go again!

…Morning Pages

I’ve already mentioned this technique when describing my attempt to make friends with it. Julia Cameron presented this exercise in The Artist’s Way, and some bloggers started considering it a freewriting technique.

But it’s not so.

Morning Pages miss a few rules of freewriting: They prescribe you to write in the mornings only, and they don’t tell anything about setting strict time frames to complete three handwritten pages of text.

Moreover, let’s face it:

It’s hard to wake up and start writing at once, so don’t be surprised if your Morning Pages become frustrating in due course.

… Automatic Writing

In spiritualism and Freudism, it’s about writing produced involuntarily (subconsciously) when a person’s attention is ostensibly directed elsewhere. When we work on freewriting, however, we are conscious, even if this consciousness is sometimes not entirely clear.

…Mind Maps

Developed by psychologist Tony Buzan in the late 1960s and described in his book Use Both Sides of Your Brain, mind maps are about building logical connections between the elements. Freewriting techniques do not put logic at the forefront.

The mind maps created on a computer are repeatedly modified. What is written in freewriting remains unchanged. And that’s the beauty of it!

…Cubing

This technique is about viewing a problem as cube facets from six different angles:

1. Description
2. Comparison
3. Association
4. Analysis
5. Use
6. Evaluation

Obviously, it’s not about strict time frames or redirecting your attention, like in freewriting.

…Brainstorming

Advertiser Alex Osborn invented brainstorming and described it in his book How to Think Up (1942).

The difference from freewriting is that several people participate in a brainstorming session, discussing ideas but not writing everything down. The ultimate goal of brainstorming is to generate new working ideas, while freewriting isn’t about immediate results. Plus, it’s a one-person job.

…Six Thinking Hats

Invented by British psychologist Edward de Bono and described in his book Six Thinking Hats (1985), the technique reminds cubing: You view a problem from six angles – red, yellow, blue, green, black, and white hats, each responsible for a different side of the solution.

The six-hat method is a variation of brainstorming, a thinking process in a particular vein, with several variations of “hat” sequences, participants, and a facilitator. It is much more complex than freewriting in terms of preparation and implementation.

7 Freewriting Techniques to Practice

The above methods are okay to combine with freewriting for better results. For example, set five minutes to free-write about a problem or situation, then examine it using cubing to remember the most relevant solutions, and finally create a corresponding mind map to generate alternative ideas.

For those looking for pure freewriting techniques, below are the seven most popular and actionable ones to practice:

“15 Puzzle” by Mark Levy

Below are 15 freewriting exercises from Mark Levy’s book Accidental Genius. I’ll try to describe them in my own words:

1. Take five minutes to write about your knotty problem. Then, after a five-minute break, take five more minutes to complement your writing with details.
2. Take a starter like “I like…,” “I adore…, or “I hate…,” and perform a 10-minute freewriting session.
3. Choose five professional jargon words from your niche and write about each of them for five minutes.
4. Write about a problem that bothers you: facts, actions, your opinion. Don’t simply recount but make it a story where one argument relates to others.
5. While writing, don’t get hung up on one thought; move on to another in search of the right idea.
6. Use assumptions to get out of a deadlock. Think of a problem you can’t solve, and spend 10 minutes writing about someone who has successfully solved it.
7. Within two days, use freewriting to write down one hundred solutions to your pesky problem.
8. Write about an interesting observation you’ve made in the past two weeks. As you write, choose one exciting detail and elaborate on it.
9. Conduct a conversation on paper. Determine a topic and write down a ten-minute dialogue with an imaginary counselor.
10. Spend 20 minutes writing about how you help and disturb someone at work.
11. Writer’s marathon! Devote two or three hours in the morning to an idea you want to explore; don’t allow anything to distract you.
12. Get stumbled. Spend 10 minutes writing about a situation that exhausts you physically and morally: No solutions, just facts.
13. Imagine a person and write to them about a challenging situation they’ve faced. Then, do the same but describe a pleasant situation.
14. Take your favorite book, choose the most and least valuable ideas from it, and spend 10 minutes writing about each one.
15. Set a timer (20 minutes) and write down everything that would improve your life. Choose what you’ll do during the next three hours.

Reversal

The point is to write about what you don’t want. So you sit down and write, for example, “I don’t want to write about air intakes and oil and gas separators because…”

Robert Cialdini described the result of such exercises in his Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion:

The Chinese asked prisoners to make statements like, “The United States is not perfect,” “There is no unemployment in socialist countries,” etc. Then they asked soldiers to make a “list of problems of American society” with their personal signatures and gave these lists to other POWs to read.

The final stage was to ask them to write an essay on a previously assigned topic. Soldiers argued against the statements they believed in, began to support them, and unconsciously turned into collaborators.

Worldviews changed after such freewriting “sessions,” so what to say about mere laziness to write about something!

Mind Alteration

I bet you heard the phrase “Write drunk, edit sober,” misattributed to Ernest Hemingway. The point is that we think and behave differently under mind alteration:

For example, Stephen King doesn’t remember how he wrote one of his most famous books –  Cujo – because of his then-addiction to alcohol. 

I don’t encourage you to free-write with a bottle of wine at hand, though one glass could work. 😉 Mind alteration in freewriting can be about changing some physical conditions to influence the brainwork.

Thus, German poet Friedrich Schiller dipped his feet in the cold water while writing, and French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau exposed his uncovered head to the sun.

“It’s Ready!” Meditation

The technique works to break through writer’s block, and you can easily adapt it to freewriting:

Imagine that your text is ready, and now you’re reading it. Or that a story is happening before your eyes, and you observe it right now.

Not only can you write about what you see, hear, or feel, but you can also put aside time, place, and reality, unleashing your imagination to its full extent.

Change a Genre

Can’t write a complex technical article? Turn it into horror, convincingly positive, or informative style! Change genres and work with different formats:

Translate a blog post into a landing page, turn a short ad into a full-fledged commercial proposal, or revise a social media post into a product review.

Such a trick has changed the lives of some famous literary men:

• Poet Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve became a critic
• Tragedian Honoré de Balzac turned into a novelist
• Novice playwright Arthur Conan Doyle revealed himself to the world as the most popular author of detectives

Jurgen Wolff’s Idea Generator Game

In his book, Your Writing Coach, German scriptwriter Jurgen Wolff shares the story generator game:

Choose a number from each grid – you’ll have five numbers in the result – and start freewriting. Let’s say you take 3, 5, 2, 1, 8:

So, you’ll have a drama where a cop arrests a soldier who’s returned from the war because he is jealous of his wife flirting with that soldier. He escapes from the station and hides in an old house. The police storm the building, losing officers one by one. In the end, the soldier’s former commander arrives, blames it on the “Vietnam syndrome,” and takes the poor guy far away from that place.

Not bad, huh?

“Five words”

Ask your friend or relative to give you five nominative nouns unrelated to each other – and use them one by one to write a story. The trick is to use those words in the order proposed by those who gave them.

This technique reminds #3 of Mark Levy’s puzzle, but here you don’t have any time frames and use words given by other people.

If you work in SEO copywriting, you can create unexpected but organic keyword bunches this way.

That’s all, folks!

So now that you know what freewriting is and isn’t and get tons of freewriting techniques to try, it’s time to put things aside, set a timer for 10 minutes, and have a freewriting session!