Ever tried freewriting?

Delving into those finer parts of your brain you didn’t think perhaps exist?

And it’s not that I’m trying to sell you anything.

It’s more by way of advice, a pointer, some deigned mutual interest in sharing.

For that comes when you experience the truly unique or special but realise at the same time you’re one of the lucky few.

And it’s then that you simply have to share it, a priceless piece of life experience that’s just bursting to be disclosed.

To close friends initially, and maybe the wider circle, but then why stop at that?

- I think it’s that something in us that for whichever reason propels us, requires us even to share and relate those truly formative personal experiences with others, it’s part of our dna.

And that’s how I feel about free-writing.

For the way I see it - irrespective of where you stand when it comes to literature and writing, and your aspirations (or not as the case may be) as a writer, free-writing is one of those truly unique and special life experiences - one that I believe can and should be available to all.

If nothing other - than a release, a way of alleviating the tensions.

But then also - and this is the key - to finding new meaning just when you thought it had left you behind.

And free-writing - it’s actually little harder to do than many of our other more normalised practices, such as seeing things, or thinking thoughts, or engaging with people, or singing songs, or painting pictures, and so on.

Only freewriting is a key to your soul.

What is Freewriting?

Accoring to Wikipedia

Freewriting involves continuous writing, usually for a pre-set period of time (often five to fifteen minutes).

You write without regard to spelling, grammar, etc., and make no corrections.

If you reach a point where you can't think of anything to write, presumably you will write that you can't think of anything or repeat words, until you find another line of thought.

And you freely stray off topic, letting thoughts lead where they may.

Freewriting is based on a presumption that, while everybody has something to say and the ability to say it, the mental wellspring may be blocked by apathy, self-criticism, resentment, anxiety about deadlines, fear of failure or censure, or other forms of resistance.

The accepted rules of free-writing are there to enable writers to build up enough momentum to blast past blocks into uninhibited flow, and it is about loosening and limbering the thought process (as opposed to the finished product per se).

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That was Wikipedia.

But in my view freewriting is something more, a different level more. Free-writing opens a door into a new world.

For freewriting, and the process of, if engaged in the purest, most free sense, i.e. according “to the rules”, draws out one’s innermost thoughts in a purer form, possibly unaltered completely from whence they came.

Free-writing relays your thoughts with the cap or the filter removed, and so there’s the emergence of raw, fresh off the block shards of untamed thought matter, and a perspective into your ‘true self’ that’s normally hard to reach. Which also includes the higher truths, and unchartered, intimate pieces of self-knowledge.

At the same time there’s the enjoyment of that higher bond- the direct connectivity- between your conscious and sub-conscious mind, or soul.

And once the process has begun it’s self-propelling in its nature.

The more the intimate the thoughts you collect about yourself, the more you feel you want to continue, as (a) it’s pleasurable to do so (you’re experiencing the higher connectivity with your soul), and (b) you’re gaining from the precious self-knowledge.

And all the while your curiosity is being stoked, then met, then re-fuelled, ongoing.

So as you free-write, you continue to delve further, and so on, in a kind of automaton.

- Also otherwise known as being in the zone.

So: to all my friends, acquaintances, and not least the random passers by (those who happen to have stumbled onto this site by chance), I’d like to welcome you all into this wonderful world of free-writing, where you can learn how to navigate your way into the zone, and begin to access the hidden wealth of your subconscious - with rare aplomb.

All this by essentially being free and letting go.

Art of the Freewrite

And so - if after some careful (or cursory) perusal of the above, and perhaps the odd bit of pensive if not wistful soul-searching while you’re at it, you consider yourself to be even slightly tempted - please be so. Do so. Act on that intuition.

Engage.

Make it happen.

Embark on the great journey.

And start scripting your very own free-write.

There’s little to lose.

And as to the whens and hows- the logistics- it’s quite simple.

Just begin.

The best time is any time you like.

But ideally at the beginning of your day. And any day you like.

But most optimally is like literally when you’ve just woken up.

It’s then that your mind is most free.

And if you can, try and empty your mind of all thought. Possibly even the idea of thought.

This way you should find it just that little bit easier, more fluid..

And as you draw breath and put pen to paper you should simply let your pen do the talking, your pen relaying your surface but also your deeper, inner thoughts as they emerge of themselves, acting as a medium for the workings of your subconscious mind.

Your pen should relay your thoughts, or thought impressions, as naturally and as randomly as you can get it to.

Pure unfiltered prose.

- And you may just be pleasantly surprised at the result.

Example of a Freewrite

Needless to say, of everything I could offer you by way of illustration, true as ever the self promoter (if ever I knew one), I place myself in your capable hands with one of my very own freewrites, the very first one I ever composed in fact - as your first offering.

I have to admit I was all three of hesitant, nervous and sceptical myself at the beginning. But you soon get into the flow as the mind focuses.

Elixir of the Pink Moon:-

This freewrite was penned in the early hours of a dusky morning back in the Autumn of twenty seventeen.

And admittedly, truthfully, it is no doubt the culmination, by-product of some full-on, dedicated binge reading I undertook in the several months prior (and not in The Priory as such, I’d have you know, ha ..). Some of it was philosophy and the rest was indulgent, copious amounts of louche fiction, yes- quite the luxury- but also part of a concerted campaign of self towards the high goal of enlightenment, or as close to it as one could hope for given the peculiar if not intriguing circumstances I was privileged enough to have been so nobly confronted with at the time (details of which may indeed be discoursed at some future date, possibly).

One of the texts was in translation into the English by the renowned German psychologist and philosopher Carl Jung, it was one of those key Tsao-Bhuddist texts titled “Secret of the Golden Flower”, replete with its exquisite linguistic form and symbolisms.

And, as will surely start to emerge as you read through (my said freewrite below), this text was most likely one of the core, pervading influences on the gracile meanderings of my then probably a little over masticated subconscious mind.

That said, I’d hope by way of example that the same might instil in you something of the latent desire - for the like submergence of mind, body and spirit into an august if not lofty performance of one’s very own first freewrite.