Un-blocking Writer’s Block (Copy)
A common frustration of writers, novice and expert, is the feeling of “writer’s block.” Like some heavy concrete slab has been laid on our minds and emotions, it weighs down our motivation and blocks our vision so that moving forward feels like floating in space without a tether, without some force of gravity pulling us toward our goal.
One common reason this feeling of writer’s block occurs is an engagement of our critical faculty at the expense of our creative faculty. Writing scholar Peter Elbow discusses this concept of two faculties in his important work Writing with Power (1981). Elbow is famous for pioneering the concept of “freewriting,” though he didn’t invent the idea, just the word for it. I know, it sounds like he’ll say we need to use elbow grease in our writing, but what I emphasize at this point is that writing can be liberating, fun, and life-changing if we let down our guard and are willing to give, to establish a relationship with our audiences, and to allow our creative faculty to have free reign for a little while.
For Elbow, freewriting, is a process of letting your mind get out what it needs to in order to clarify your thinking and creatively synthesize ideas. He thought writing worked best in a two-part sequence: creative then critical. During the creative phase, we don’t censure ourselves, we don’t worry about what we’re writing, how it looks or fits rules we think we know. We just write. Later, after we’ve found the focus, the center of gravity of our writing, we then can go back and read critically, looking for how to make our writing better and communicate our ideas effectively. This means multiple drafts where you don’t worry about throwing out what you’ve written. You get as much writing on the page as you can and then only select the best.
A center of gravity idea is an idea that appears to be most important in your freewrite, that sticks its head out and draws your attention. Elbow says it can be an "assertion, but it could also be a mood, an image, a central detail or even or object—as long as it somehow sums up everything. This summing up process should be difficult: it should tell you more than you already know."
“The center of gravity it can be an “assertion, but it could also be a mood, an image, a central detail or even or object—as long as it somehow sums up everything.) This summing up process should be difficult: it should tell you more than you already know.””
How does this process work? If you’re stuck, try freewriting. Remember, the goal is to shut down the critical faculty for a little while—ask it to take a break, you just don’t need it right now, but later you will. That faculty stops us from writing; it keeps critiquing our words and sentences as we write, slows us until we’re analyzing all the time and can’t move on until it’s perfect. But perfect isn’t the purpose until the end. Writers will tell you that the writing is the fun part, the editing and revision is a creative downer: unless you’re one of those people who likes the revision process.
As a caveat, I’ll discuss this idea of making revision enjoyable in a later post. Learning to understand the nature, variety, and creative potential of revision is one of the characteristics that separates novice writers from experienced writers.
Freewriting is the part where our brain gets to say whatever it wants, even if it doesn’t appear to be directly related to our original task before us. So how do we freewrite? The process is fairly simple—though it has sometimes been misused in school classes and left some students with a bad taste in their mouths.
How to Freewrite (the right way):
Even as I write “the right way” above, I can hear Elbow over my shoulder saying, “there’s not a one right way.” So, I want to say, “the way he pioneered it as a process” not a formula you have to follow. The general pattern is offered here:
Develop (or locate) a prompt that will be your goal/purpose for your freewriting session. I teach my students that you want your prompt to be directly related to where you are in your writing process, with an eye to where you want to be when you’re done freewriting. For example, if I am writing an academic essay and—at the moment—I’ve been conducting research and want to figure out where that research fits in my larger concern, then my prompt will ask me that question: “Where does X’s ideas about “Y” fit into my larger issue that “Z” leads to a set of problems in our life?” If I need to develop a character in more detail, then my prompt might explore that character’s life—even if most of the writing never makes it to the final work: “What was Charlie’s childhood like and how did it lead him to develop the particular facial tick he displays when he’s nervous"?”
Now JUST WRITE. Set up a period of time to write—say 30 minutes. Then divide that time into two or three segments (two 12 minutes periods, for example) and then review segments (two 3-minute periods—total: 30 minutes). JUST WRITE for twelve minutes without stopping based on wherever your mind goes from your initial prompt. Even if you run dry of ideas, write something, for example: “I am out of ideas and I do not know what to write about Charlie’s childhood when his mother used to scratch his face when he annoyed her…” and you’re back to your topic.
After the first segment of time (twelve minutes in this example) are up, take three minutes to review/read back over what you have written. You are now looking for that center of gravity idea I mentioned earlier. When you locate it, then move down the page to a blank section and try to develop that center of gravity into a question or statement that can become your next prompt.
Technically, you’re done freewriting here, but Elbow actually developed the process to become looping, which continues by repeating again the same activity. So, let’s loop.
Now JUST WRITE again using your new prompt as you did in #2 above.
As #3, when your next longer segment of time is over, look for a new or more developed/nuanced center of gravity from the new writing you just completed.
The point here is that you can be free to write as long as you want. Your segments can be shorter or longer, review more or less, but loop either way. Set a length for the entire session, but don’t overly monitor yourself. Set a timer, but feel free to ignore it and write a little longer if needed. This activity teaches our creative and critical faculties that they can work together, they can be partners, one working, then the other, then back again.