Thursday, February 1, 2018

Spontaneous Writing: A writing exercise

If you’re looking for a change in your writing, or you’re stuck, learn to spontaneously write something. Anything. Whatever comes to mind. It doesn’t have to be good or bad or anything. It’s really easy. Let yourself unwind in front of the computer screen, or on paper. I always love to write on actual paper. Not online. Sometimes you need a break from that.

Okay, back to spontaneous writing. I’ll give you some examples of it. So I’m going to let my mind wander, to the window or the wall. A white wall of nothingness until it becomes something. Red. Green. Leaves in the fall. I don’t know where I’m going with this, but I’m writing it and it feels pretty good just to be writing.

These are some of the exercises I do to get something going on. Even if your mind switches and all you write are mmmmmmmmms. Then you stare at the screen, and think of humming. Then you hum a song. It gets stuck in your head. No, no. I’m just thinking out loud, or in other words, spontaneously because this post is going to be all over the place. Because this is how my mind works. Everyone is different so, you might find yourself writing a scene with a young girl sitting at the park, wearing her golden hair down. Curls blowing in the wind. Someone rides by with their bike. Billy from down the street. This girl doesn’t want to see Billy anymore. WHAT? That just came out of nowhere. I could go on and on about Billy and this girl because I was on a roll there until I stopped myself. You get the point.

You can stop and start and stop and start. Reread things. It’s best if you can maybe fill a page of spontaneous writing. You might be super surprised to find out it isn’t all that bad. Even if that means clearing your mind from the WIP you’re working on now. If you write for a while, things will come out. It doesn’t have to make sense. 

You can try to make sense of it later when you reread and reflect on what you said. Because it was something your mind was saying to you at the time.

Silver flakes down the great lakes. Spontaneous there. Colors letters, Y R Z. What do they mean? It could be someone’s initials or the latest phone. Who knows? You’re a writer and you are creative and you’ll think of something.

If you find yourself stopping. Press the keyboard anything. SSSSSSSSeriously. Haha. It doesn’t always work, but it works for me most of the time. That is why I’m bringing it up to you too. This could help you get those words flowing again. Reading of course is another wonderful way of recharging the mind. Always remember that. But there are also other ways, writing exercises that will also help.

I hope you got the idea on how to write spontaneously. Yarn. A cat. A hat. Pearls on someone’s neck. She’s lonely. Who? Jack’s girl. That lady that works at the grocery store is her mother. WHAT? Seriously, once you start writing, it will come naturally. It doesn’t have to be grammarally correct. Get the hint there? No. Certainly not.


Anyway, I’m rambling because I myself needed to do this exercise because I haven’t written anything in a good while. I haven’t updated my blog in 2 months! I’m slackin’. So this is my way of saying, thank you for tuning in to my program. Haha. I truly hope this helps you!