The trick to doing this, if you are one of the few who can pull this off, is to “get your meaning clear in your head before you start writing. (In effect you are stuck with two steps again: figure out your meaning, then write.)” Overall, I think this is a recipe for disaster and he would have been better off not suggesting or including this idea. I know that sounds like sticking ones head in the sand, but there it is.
4. The Open-Ended Writing Process — This is as opposite as possible from the direct writing method. He explains its intent this way: “The open-ended writing process is ideal for the situation where you sense you have something to write but you don’t know quite what.”
He suggests writing about any topic at all and continuing for “at least ten or twenty or thirty minutes, depending on how much material and energy you come up with. You have to write long enough to get tired and get past what’s on the top of your mind. But not so long that you start pausing in the midst of your writing.” The writer should then re-read what he wrote and summarize it in a sentence. Then, he said, “Use that focusing sentence for a new burst of nonstop writing. Again, let the writing go wherever it wants to go. Invite yourself gradually or suddenly to lose sight of whatever you start with.” After the process is repeated, eventually something will emerge, which you will then begin to revise or rework.
This approach sounds a bit too new-agey and spiritual for me. I’ve not tried this, so maybe it’s unfair to question it, but I just can’t endorse this one.
5. Lastly, the Loop Writing Process — This process is sort of a compromise, a middle ground of sorts, in which the writer tries to get the best of both worlds — creativity and control.
This process takes longer than the direct writing method but not nearly as long as the open-ending writing process. He calls it the loop because “it takes you on an elliptical orbiting voyage. For the first half, the voyage out, you do pieces of almost-freewriting during which you allow yourself to curve out into space — allow yourself, that is, to ignore or even forget exactly where your topic is. For the second half, the voyage home, you bend your efforts back into the gravitational field of your original topic as you select, organize, and revise parts of what you produced during the voyage out"
Article comments
1 - Robert
In the early stages of trying to keep my inner editor at bay during the initial draft, I shifted my email composition to first thing in the morning. It gets me in the habit of writing freely, and that habit carries over to my writing when I finally buckle down to work.
2 - Scott Butki
excellent solution. I have found - and i talk about it here - that some of the best times to write are early in the morning or late at nite. it's as if the inner editor goes to sleep.