This blog is an unprompted reflection about a specific process I experienced in my English Composition I class. The topic I have chosen is free-writing and how it has helped me in my writing process.
When I first started English Composition I, I had no idea what free-writing was. Free-writing is a way to get all your thoughts down on paper at the beginning of your writing process. Sometimes, people get stuck on what to write about or do not know where to start. The idea is to write in complete sentences (handwritten or typed) without stopping no matter what over a certain amount of time. If you do not know what to write, you can just start writing random words until something comes to your mind. For our Life-Choice Memoir, we did an in-class free-writing session to practice writing down our thoughts for thirty minutes. We were told by our professor to set a goal of how many words we wanted to achieve in that half hour. My goal was 600 words and I surpassed it during that time period, totaling to 1042 words. I never ended up using what I wrote during that session in my memoir, but it was an amazing feeling to be able to write over 1000 words in such a short amount of time. After that class, I knew I wanted to use this method as part of my process. I wanted to replicate it because I felt so productive and accomplished knowing that I could produce quality writing in just a half-hour. When I finally decided on the life-choice I wanted to write about, I used free-writing to write my opening scene. By the end, I had at least 350 words I wanted to use in my paper. I thought my writing was much more descriptive and created a good scene because I just let the words flow without stopping. I did not pause to check to make sure my spelling or grammar was right, knowing that I could go back later and polish it. Using this method, helped me focus on the five senses rather than just telling the audience everything I was experience. I was able to show the readers using descriptive language that I wrote during my free-writing session. Going forward, I will continue to use this method whether it is for another English class or for my own personal writing. I am trying to get back in the habit of working on creative writing because it was one of my favorite hobbies in high school. My friends and I used to write short stories for each other and it was one of my fondest memories. I will use free-writing to pick up this hobby again and hopefully create work that I am proud of in the future. To assist me in this process, I purchased a writing journal called Prompt Me which I mentioned in a previous blog. To gain more insight into this journal, please click on the link here. I encourage everyone to include free-writing in their processes because it is a very empowering and worthwhile form of writing.
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Molly ZahnerI will use this blog to post my informal writing assignments for my English Composition I class. Archives
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