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F-R-E-E-Writing

It is no coincidence that both Jo in Lovers’ Hollow and and Izzy in A Dance in Time write their way to resolution.  This is my small tribute to the power of writing to heal and liberate.

Writing is such a miracle – through marks on a page, we can communicate across vast continents and dead generations – but like all the everyday miracles,    we tend to take it for granted.  

Writing is the uniquely human experience.  Dolphins, birds and other species can communicate but only we can write.  It is also the human achievement that (literally) underwrites all the others – without it there would be no mathematics, no science, no philosophy, no history, no cinema.  And, of course, no literature. 

Equally miraculous, I believe, is the power writing gives us to deepen our communication with, and understanding of, ourselves.  

My interest in this has led me to the technique I call F-R-E-E-Writing. This simple writing method is a key to emotional health, spiritual awakening and creative breakthrough — not to mention better writing.  It has made such a difference in my own life that it is now my daily practice.  And I have seen it make such a difference in other lives that I now pass it on whenever I can.

F-R-E-E stands for writing Fast, Raw and Exact-But-Easy (See F-R-E-E-Writing Tutorial).  Using this method the aim is to write fast enough, for a set period of time or number of pages, to get beyond our censoring, conscious minds and access subconscious levels.  

I have introduced this easy writing method to writers and other artists and emerging artists –but also to postgraduate students and returners-to-work, to immigrant groups and women recovering from drug addiction.

I have witnessed its benefits among people from different countries and at every level of social and personal development, even those with weak literacy skills.  I can teach the same simple technique, over and over, without ever tiring of it because my respect for F-R-E-E-Writing’s complex potential, continues to expand and deepen.

I have come to see F-R-E-E-Writing not as a luxury for those with the time to do it but a simple, significant shortcut to emotional and artistic wellbeing. A daily brushing of the psyche, that takes a little bit longer – though not much – than a good brushing and flossing of the teeth.

I have come to believe that everybody who can be, should be, F-R-E E Writing.

F-R-E-E-Writing FOR WRITERS AND ARTISTS

This is especially true those who create or want to create — writers, of course, but also composers and filmakers and artists of all kinds.

1. F-R-E-E-Writing clears. Sometimes, yes, we may be overwrought in our F-R-E-E-Writing. Or whiny or irritable or sad or angry or miserable. Or joyful or elated or carefree or blissed out. Over time, all our emotions will find their way in and we come to see how transient they are.  Allowing all the “negative” emotions, ideas and feelings within us and giving them free vent in our notebooks, siphons them off. This greatly lessens their hold on us.  This is why some people see F-R-E-E-Writing as a form of meditation.
2. FREE-Writing liberates.  We come to see that it is not the events that happen to us – as individuals or as artists – that count, so much as our inner relationship to those events. Regular F-R-E-E-Writing ensures we become a channel for the deep stuff rather than a mouthpiece for surface ego moans, sound-offs, rants or self-indulgences.  We acquire the distance that is a prerequisite of art.  
3. F-R-E-E-Writing Stabilises.  Truly allowing all the voices inside diminishes the power of any one (I’m thinking of the inner critic).  Regular and committed use of FREE-Writing generates a progressive strengthening of the psyche.
4. F-R-E-E-Writing inspires. As you F-R-E-E-Write, great ideas emerge, seemingly from nowhere.
5. F-R-E-E-Writing empowers.  F-R-E-E-Writing teaches us to trust our own experience of the world, our own intuition – essential to an artist – and gives us confidence that we are able to express them. 

To Try It Go Here