How Free Writing Can Help You Discover What You Don't Know

From the website tricycle.org (The Buddhist Review): Daily Dharma

WILD, FRESH, AND ALIVE

Could we be open to the idea that the murky area lurking just below the conscious mind is wiser than the logical, planner-infested mind?

If we stay open to the idea, then we might just find that the writer given permission to play is liberated. Once we’ve leapt over the analyzing, ego-mind, we might even find far richer patterns and images.

In free writing we are able to put on the page what we already know, but then we get to discover what we didn’t know, and then we get to be surprised by stumbling upon what we didn’t know we knew. That’s some good stuff.

Sometimes, it’s easy. We get on a roll and keep going, gathering strength along the way. Sometimes it’s not. That is when we continue to keep our pen on the page writing something, anything. It could be describing where we are at that moment, or what we ate for breakfast.

Often, our detours leads us into a whole new, undiscovered places, and then, we’re off! The detours become like getting lost, but not caring. It is as if there was a Batsignal beam of light to home, so you wander wherever your heart desires knowing you will find your way back.

When you return, we often find what we have written to be intriguing. We get curious and maybe dive in a little deeper, and oftentimes it is where we find our most “wild, fresh, and alive” ideas and writing.