Writing Without Thinking: The Benefits of Freewriting Technique

Do keep your hands moving.

Do you remember how it felt when you used to write in your journal and pour your heart out onto its pages? You wrote because you cared about the words you put down. There was a lot of emotion and a heap of personal beliefs and convictions.

For me, writing again and again refined my beliefs, reconstructed them, and simply reorganized my values.

There’s a formidable connection between the hand that writes and the brain. For me, it’s magical because of what it accomplishes.

Freewriting, a writing strategy developed by Peter Elbow in 1973, is a form of brainstorming. The essential difference is that it happens in writing. When we practice it, we write sentences and paragraphs without stopping.

“The consequence [of writing] is that you must start by writing the wrong meanings in the wrong words; but keep writing until you get to the right meanings in the right words. Only in the end will you know what you are saying.” — Peter Elbow

The key is to write without thinking. Set a timer and write for 10–15 minutes. It’s a way to control your thoughts. Handwriting is a sufficiently complex activity that involves many muscles and receptors, which is good because it prevents automation.