Freewriting and the Messy Step in Essay Writing
Core Idea: Freewriting
- Freewriting is writing freely: the act of jotting down whatever comes to mind without judgment or worrying about the final product.
- Purpose: to get your stream of consciousness thoughts on the page while training you to trust your gut and write your brains out or trust your brain and write your guts out.
- Emphasis: don’t stress; just write.
The Messy Step and Its Value
- The step in the essay process that feels the messiest is the one that sets you up for success.
- The blank page portion of the process is always the most terrifying.
- The more you write, the more you will have to consider when you pull together your more cohesive drafts.
- The deeper you dig, the greater chance you have of unearthing the hidden gems buried in the deepest layers of your memory.
Prewriting: The Essay is Already Up There
- Your essay is already up there, but the components are scattered.
- Initially, it may be hard to distinguish the keepers from the fool’s gold.
- Guidance: keep everything and keep going.
- Actionable approach: experiment.
- Blank page as a terrifying but transformative space.
- Hidden gems buried in memory as the valuable material waiting to be discovered.
- Fool’s gold as the tempting but ultimately less valuable elements.
Practical Implications for Your Writing Practice
- Freewriting acts as a non-judgmental generation tool to surface ideas without censoring yourself.
- It creates material that can later be shaped into cohesive drafts.
- The process encourages persistence: start messy, then refine.
- Experimental mindset: try different angles, perspectives, or lines of thought during freewriting.
Connections to Broader Writing Principles
- Freewriting supports the larger prewriting and drafting cycle: generate, then evaluate, then revise.
- Trusting your gut aligns with authentic voice and personal insight in writing.
- Digging into memory to retrieve ideas can yield meaningful content for later structure.
Ethical, Philosophical, and Practical Considerations
- Practical implication: freewriting promotes honesty and authenticity by lowering self-censoring during idea generation.
- Philosophical stance: value of process over product in early drafting stages.
- Practical risk: need a subsequent editing phase to separate useful material from tangents.
- None present in this transcript.
Summary of Key Takeaways
- Freewriting = write freely, without judgment or concern for final form.
- The hardest step (a blank page) is often the most productive for later drafts.
- More writing reveals more material to shape into cohesive essays.
- Deep digging leads to hidden gems; initial drafts contain scattered components.
- Keep everything and experiment to discover what truly matters.
