A Writer's Notebook, Day Nine-Hundred-And-Thirty-Eight

I did a small freewriting exercises today, and I felt it was a good start.  It was not an ideal implementation, to be honest, as I wasn't using my computer at the time, but was on my phone.  Even so, I felt that it did help to get loosen me up a bit, and I plan to continue with this approach tomorrow.  This time, I wrote using the letter "a" at the start of every word.  It gave me the ability to focus on that part of the challenge, but I need to give myself the freedom to just fall into listing words, or even just typing the letter over and over if I get stuck.  The goal has to be to get beyond a certain level of conscious critique, so as to allow whatever is waiting to come flooding out.  It is about distracting my conscious self enough that what might normally come out will.  Even today, when my effort was limited, I found that the process forced me to allow a lot more to come through from the language, not in terms of the sounds themselves but in the sense of having the words lead and the concepts come more organically as I am writing.  The focus has to be on the technical challenge, and I think, the more I do this, the more I will free myself to write without considering what I am writing during the process.  At some point, I think I will reach a place where I can let loose with what is in my mind and just allow it to come out.  Of course, that may not always result in good writing, but the point is to develop the confidence and intuition to write without internal censorship, applying that within the craft is another level.

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