writing without fear

Today’s prompt has me giving advice about a topic that I have a lot of knowledge about. Today, that advice will be about defeating writer’s block… or, at the very least, pushing writer’s block aside. It may come back, but not yet.

One of the reasons that people have writer’s block is the fear that their writing looks disjointed, unpolished, or just plain awful. They may believe that, if their writing is not perfect, it is not valid. Or they might say, “I have no talent for writing.”

My goal is to have you think that, “yes, I can write.” I would love it if you discovered that there is an internal storyteller in you, just waiting to come out. The eventual goal is for you to discover your own writing voice.

But there’s this little internal critic that’s telling you otherwise. It’s giving you a lot of negative commentary. It causes you to tell people that you are a bad writer, that you have no imagination, or that you literally have nothing worth saying.

But no, none of those negative things are true….

So, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to give you a fun creative writing exercise. There are a few things that I would like for you to do before you start the exercise. The first would be to get a piece of paper, if you intend on writing by hand, or to open your word processing app if you’re going to write on a computer or a tablet. I’m not sure about writing on a cell phone. There’s a lot of fat finger syndrome that you’re going to have to deal with when writing on the itty bitty cell phone keyboard.

The reason that I’m suggesting not using a cell phone is because you’re going to want to write quickly and in your own words. Cell phones, unfortunately, have incorporated this most annoying system of predictive text, which will very much get in the way of your writing effectively.

So… this is the exercise…

The goal is to write nonstop for fifteen minutes. I’m going to give you a phrase so you can start your stories. I’m also going to give you a few words to use in your story. Come to think of it, you don’t have to write a story. If you prefer, you could write a journal entry or a poem or any other form of writing that you enjoy.

Here are the words that I’d like you to incorporate into your writing:

hurt prick liberate lavish elegant school heaven beer

The first words for you to write are: “She had to find the necklace before…”

Set a timer for fifteen minutes. You can use the cell phone for timing your writing exercise. My mom used to have a collection of little timers that she used for cooking, but these days, the little timers are no longer needed because the cell phone has a great timer function.

Once you write the words that I have given you, keep writing nonstop until the timer goes off. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar, even if your word processing program underlines words in red. Ignore that completely. Don’t worry about whether the thing that you’re writing makes sense or not. At this point, that doesn’t matter. That’s your internal editor, giving you negative messages. You need to turn off the internal editor at this point. Just let the words flow until time has expired. You may end up in mid sentence, but that’s okay.

On Thursday, I will share my own story. This will give you enough time to do your own writing! On Thursday, I will ask you to share what you’ve written, if you want to do that. If you don’t want to share, that’s okay, too. This is meant to be pressure free, and I don’t want you to do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable.

This will be a series of writing exercises, and I am so excited about sharing them. I am considering offering an in person workshop at the local library, with these exercises that I am sharing with you this month.

My goal is to share my love of writing with as many people as possible. My hope is that you will discover that love, as well.

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