Last night as I drifted to sleep, I began thinking of free-writing, and how Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg both promote freewriting to anyone who wants to write well.
Author of the best-selling Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron is known for what she calls,”morning pages.” This is Cameron’s prescription for becoming a better writer, and all that’s required is writing 3 pages in longhand first thing upon waking.
Another notable writing teacher, Natalie Goldberg, author of the best-selling Writing Down the Bones and many other wonderful books on the craft of writing, also promotes free-writing each and every day, and while she calls it, “writing practice,” instead of, “morning pages,” it is the same idea.
Just because morning pages/writing practice is simple, doesn’t mean it’s not profound. Running around a track is not profound, is it? Barring obvious physical limitations, anyone can put one foot in front of another. So the actual act of free-writing is not what makes it helpful. It’s that – like any sport – you need to practice in order to get better.
Somehow, this fact gets overlooked when it comes to writing. No one would expect someone to win a marathon without having spent hours and hours running. Why is it, then, that we often expect people to whip out a wonderful piece of writing without having practiced?
This is why I prefer the term “writing practice,” for free-writing. For one thing, if you call it, “writing practice,” it doesn’t require you to do it at any particular time of day. Secondly, it reminds you that writing, like any discipline (painting, yoga, boxing, fox hunting, curling, running), is a skill you can get better at if you practice. Good writing is dependent upon good writing muscles, which – like any other muscle – need to be flexed every day, or else it atrophies.
Sure, you’ll get the flu, or your talkative neighbor will corral you by the driveway as you try to retreat to your house. Stuff happens. But it’s pretty simple with writing. If you don’t write often, you won’t write well.
I love Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg, but here is what made me laugh out loud as I was falling asleep last night. Both of them – Cameron and Goldberg – lived in Taos, New Mexico while having these great epiphanies that led to each of them writing wonderful books about creativity and how to be a better writer.
And – get this – both of them used to look out at Taos Mountain as they did their free-writing. [Insert Twilight Zone theme here.] It’s like Taos Mountain was their muse.
So here I am living in ultra-flat Texas, which left me wondering, and made me giggle in my near-sleep last night: Where’s my mountain, baby?
Tui Snider is an author, speaker, and photographer who specializes in North Texas travel, cemetery symbols, and haunted lore. As she puts it, “I used to write fiction – but then, I moved to Texas!”
Snider’s best-selling books include Paranormal Texas , Understanding Cemetery Symbols, and 100 Things to Do in Dallas - Fort Worth Before You Die.
Snider has several more books in progress, and enjoys connecting with writers and readers all over the globe through social media, her newsletter and her website: TuiSnider.com.
Ya know, I live in Taos with a view of the mountains out every single window, and I can’t say that I’m any more inspired than I was living in Austin or traveling full-time. Actually, I think I may write less than I did when I was traveling.
Hi there, Thanks for swinging by my blog. Your comment gave me a laugh. So, the mountains in Taos are not boosting your writing output, eh? All mountains aside, do you practice free-writing in the morning? Hope to see you here again. ~Tui
I hope you got to see my shout out to you!
You totally made Nablopomo worthwhile for me this year. Thank you.
Jyllian – Yes! And thank you so much. I’ve been meaning to post a coherent thanks on your blog, but haven’t been getting around to bloghopping until I’ve run out of my allotted braincells for the day, it seems, so I’ve been lurking more than commenting. Ditto to you on the Nablopomo! :)
Cameron’s got three books beyond Vein of Gold. The last one was The Writing Diet: Writing yourself Thin. My boyfriend took one look at it and told me I could have written it.
I don’t think it was the writing that was causing the the majority of weight loss in her book though. It was the food she was eating and the exercise she was doing. I am living proof that sitting on your buttocks writing just makes said buttocks spread if you don’t keep the calories under control and exercise.
Writing yourself thin, eh? I wonder how that works! I have seriously thought about getting one of those under-desk exercise bikes so I can pedal while typing. Too bad all the brain power required to write well doesn’t burn more calories. ~Tui
[…] here goes. The other day, A post I read at Mental Mosaic , written by the effervescent Tui Cameron, got me thinking. And this is a BIG circle so bear with […]
My blogging is my practice writing, although I also enjoy putting things down on paper with a pen or a pencil. I try really hard to follow grammar rules and such. I see so much writing out there that doesn’t do this. I often wonder who edits these things. Of course, some good fiction does use the artistic license for the sake of realism in the language being spoken in the book and I understand that. It’s just that I read mostly non-fiction and I just don’t understand the need to use dangling participles and poorly constructed sentences when you are trying to impart ideas and knowledge to others. Are these books non-fiction? I need to start reading more fiction, again. I tell myself that all the time, but I don’t do it.
Sheila:
My dad’s an editor, so good grammar runs in my veins. Seriously, though, I love proofreading/editing things. I find it relaxing! People seem to know this, somehow. When I was a barista, customers often approached me with projects to edit. I didn’t advertise.
I’m one of those people who can spot typos at 10 paces, but I generally keep it to myself, unless it’s humorous. I don’t want to annoy people with my grammatical superpower. ;p
I’d like to read more (and write more) fiction, too. Might be a good New Year’s resolution!
~Tui
Good Lord, Goldberg and Cameron….. have you read Henriette Anne Klauser too? She wrote Write It Down, Make It Happen. Her thought is to make things happen, you put it out there on paper. And the weird thing is that it works.
I’m actually reading Cameron’s Vein of Gold Right now. I’m not very far in, but it’s an interesting book along the lines of Klauser’s book.
Paula: Gotta love the name Cameron, though, with anything writing connected, since it’s my last name, too. Thanks for reminding me about Write It Down, Make It Happen. I think I have that somewhere… I’ll check out Vein of Gold, too. Grazie! ~Tui