Before your expectations disappoint you, I don’t free write in public. (I mean come on, that first sentence said, “Before your expectations dissapont you” because I was typing with one hand and eating chicken nuggets with the other.) I don’t think I even free write in private. This is how I write. This is how I think. I consider. I ponder. My slogan is “I play with words” for God’s sake. That means, first and foremost, I do things with the words other than spit them out. It’s more like a spattering followed by a wipe of the mouth followed by more spattering. Ahem.
If I attempt to free write here without ever pressing the backspace or thinking or stopping to breathe, it will be a rambling mess even less interesting than counting owrds. (See? And I fixed “counting” before I could stop myself.) It’s just not a thing I can go. I mean do. Ugh.
Even with my Morning Pages, which I’ve long since stopped, I still did some correcting. But it was cloaked in me trying to get to the end of the page. Insights were few and far between. It was the same battle with the page that an open document with no direction gives me. It was a pondering of the proverbial naval fuzz, but even that sounds more exciting.
So this is a sort-of free write with the occasional oops, can’t let them see that. So I am not quite following the rules, but how could something called free writing have rules? Doesn’t feel like freedom to me. I do like rules, but only when they make sense to me. Everything has to make sense. That’s my box. If it doesn’t make sense red flags go up all over and I retreat. I could probably write a book about that. Or maybe I could spend some time in a non-sensical free write to give myself some, obviously, much-needed exposure threapy. Yeah. That hurt.
I see, I see. This is another trick to get me to open up, which is one of my writing goals. Dammit. (Does it cost me a dollar if I type the swear word instead of say it? Don’t tell my son. I already owe him enough dollars.)
This is where I want to type, “Anyhow,” or even “Anyhoo,” but gosh is that a terrible idea! This is supposed to be a free write, not a free think. I need a line to delineate the two. This is not a free think, exposure or no exposure.
Interestingly, I am coming up on 500 words more quickly than in previous posts. Okay, okay. I’m sold. It works. Bravo. Congratulations. You’re right. (It’s like pulling teeth to get me to say that—ask anyone.) But did I really say anything worth reading? That is my bar. And I want it raised and raised so I almost can’t reach it. Is free writing the path to finding those worthwhile words within the muck of spattery? (Free writing means, to me, that I can make up new words. So there.)