Free-writing loosens the hands and the mind. Beginning a writing session with a few minutes of free-writing is a lot like a climber stretching their joints before starting on the mountain. If this simile is too strenuous to contemplate, imagine a cat going to sleep; before they enter the dream, they stretch.
Stretching and free-writing have another quality in common. In addition to preparing the hands and mind for more strenuous labours, they can help with anxiety.
The calming properties of free-writing can be augmented by starting with a large font size such as 48pt. Writing with big letters at the start of a writing session can make the process feel accelerated; as though magnificent quantities of work are flowing effortlessly from your fingertips so that, for the first minutes of your writing session, the promise of the writerly fantasy of effortless productivity is fulfilled.
This also breaks the white wall of the blank page which writers through the ages are continually finding new ways to avoid confronting.
Confront. Smash.
Your free-writing session at the very least will leave your fingers limber, it may also leave your mind freer with many ideas which have appeared in the wrong place at the wrong time now safely captured, contained, and out of the way for future perusal like a private magazine counter at a secret store open only between your ears.
At best you’ll stumble on something within which is the germ of what may prove to be your lasting contribution to your area of specialisation.
Five to eight minutes of free-writing can do all this for you. It can unburden, unclench, calm and inspire you.
To quote the green owl (Duolingo), what can five to eight minutes of social media do for you?
