I don’t like free-writing. I don’t like listening to my brain hiccup and stutter on ideas. Nor do I like my unfettered thoughts set loose on a page. It seems disastrous, like letting a lion loose on the streets. I feel like every thought just flies out of my head just so extremely fast that I couldn’t possibly catch or make sense of them. I’m a plotter, damn it. I need a list, an outline, a set of guidelines in which to write anything worth putting down on paper. Pantsers, I envy you.
But here I am, free-writing away because my plotting has failed me today. I haven’t a thing to write, so I will blabber on about nothing until it becomes something. An infallible idea!
I do feel bad about last week. I underestimated the amount of mental work I needed to do to prepare for upcoming life event. And so I didn’t write much at all. Sometimes it seems like the stars have to align before I’m in the mood to write. And thus, the reason for this blog. To try and break the habit of being in the elusive “writing mood.” Â So, here’s to free-writing and all its torturous benefits.
The Blog of Christine B. 
I like the organic process of free-writing – my subconscious usually gives me better ideas in the moment than if I thought really hard about it in advance. But this really only applies to when I have a general perimeter in mind – a premise, a goal, the sketchings of a scene. I don’t just pick up the pen and GO. And I like having time to mull and ponder. So, I suppose I’m a pantser with a little bit of plotter. 🙂 It all comes down to what works for YOU, and what you enjoy. There’s no wrong way to do it. 🙂
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I suppose I like the idea of free-writing more than my actual results. I agree, free-writing with a goal in mind is so much easier…if I just let my mind wander, I end up with a big ol’ page of what-the-heck-did-I-just-write, lol.
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Ah here’s where we differ Christine! I’m a big free-writer! Though I do. Have the plot thought out in my mind before I begin so perhaps I’m some sort of hybrid?
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Ha, you’re lucky then! I think it’s better to be a hybrid than one or the other. My dominant plotter-self is mortified that my WIP only has the major plot points figured out. She’s all like, “But what the hell is gonna happen in-between?” And my pantser-self is like, “It’s fine, it’s fine, don’t worry about it!” It’s a noisy process, lol.
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Ha yes it is a scary thought filling all those blanks but I have not only come up with things I never in planned at all but even characters that are now integral to my stories! They just pop out of my head like they alwasy existed – so strange. Your way must take away a lot of that pressure though so definately has its benefits 🙂
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I do love plotting, but my favorite moments come from out of nowhere. One of the best ones came about during NaNoWriMo last year. I had spent about 30 minutes plotting out the sequence of the scenes I was about to write, and included multiple ways for the story to progress. I thought I had thought of everything, but when I sat down to write it, my characters did something I hadn’t even thought of…those smarmy devils, lol. It was weird and awesome at the same time. So much for all my plotting, haha
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Fantastic! I love when characters take on a mind of their own!
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