Free writing: the lowest threshold for improving your writing skills, you can practice it in 5 minutes after a meal
*▲ Free writing: Writing starts from the five minutes you are willing to write. *
As a writing coach, one of the questions I am most frequently asked is: “Teacher, I don’t have a writing habit, how can I start?”
Over the past decade or so, my answer to this question has remained almost the same - Start with freewriting.
Free writing is called Free Writing in English. It sounds lofty, but its essence is very simple: you don’t need any special equipment, just paper and pen, or a mobile phone or computer that can type. **The important thing is not what you write or how well you write, but whether you are willing to write every day? **
Next, I want to use this article to explain completely: why free writing is the lowest entry level but the most lasting effect in writing practice, and how I lead students to start from scratch.
Three core principles of free writing
I have brought thousands of friends who want to learn to write, and I found that most of them are not unable to write, but are bound by their own standards - before they write the first word, there are already ten editors in their heads picking at them.
The spirit of free writing is to ask those ten editors out of the room first. Specifically, if you want to practice freehand writing well, you only need to master the following three core principles.
Principle 1: Don’t care about the quality of writing
In the first stage, don’t worry about whether it’s beautiful or not, or whether your words are precise or not. You just need to faithfully transfer the picture in your head to the paper.
Writing skills develop, they are not there from the beginning. When you write for three consecutive months and look back at the first week’s writing, you will naturally find that you are making progress - this progress is not because you have learned any skills, but because you finally have the courage to write.
Principle 2: Don’t care about the structure of the article
Free writing does not require transitions, topic sentences, or conclusions. **It is a stream of consciousness. **
You can start from what you had for breakfast today, to the advertisement you saw on the MRT, then jump to the drama you watched last night, and finally settle on a question that suddenly occurred to you - this is completely OK. The structure is a matter for later articles. In the free writing stage, I just want you to practice letting the things in your mind flow to your fingertips.
Principle 3: I write by hand and I speak
Relax, please think of free writing as speaking to yourself, rather than writing a masterpiece for readers. Write in your normal speaking tone, don’t pretend to be someone else.
Many people cannot write because they switch to composition mode as soon as they start writing. The key to freewriting is to remove the switch: just write how you talk to your best friends.
What to write? Six sources I often recommend
“Teacher, I don’t know what to write.” This is also a common sticking point for students.
In fact, life is full of materials, but you just don’t have the habit of “translating them into words”. Give you six directions that I often recommend:
- What I saw and heard today: I saw an interesting sign on the road, a conversation on the MRT, and a scene outside the window of a coffee shop.
- Books or articles you have read: After reading a paragraph, you have feelings. Write down why this paragraph moved you?
- Recent drama or movie: Which scene made you stop and think about it over and over? Why?
- Conversations with family and friends: Things discussed at the dinner table, opinions raised during lunch with colleagues
- Eating and drinking scene: Is that cup of coffee good? Why? Taste, aroma, atmosphere in the store
- Little impressive things: Something that made you pause, frown, or laugh today.
The above six directions actually echo what I wrote before in “How to collect creative inspiration”: There is never a shortage of writing materials, but what I lack is the habit of being willing to write them down.
How to start? 5-minute version after meals, 10-minute version before going to bed
The biggest advantage of free writing is that it can be squeezed into any time slot. Now, let me give you two time period combinations that I actually use with my students:
5 minutes after meal version
After eating, sit down, and lock the screen of your phone for 5 minutes. Write:
-The thing that makes me feel the most so far today
- What did that remind me of?
Don’t write for more than 5 minutes—stop when the time is up. The focus of the first week is to develop the act of sitting down and writing, not how much you write.
10 minutes before bed version
The 10 minutes before bed are prime time as the day’s messages have settled. Write:
- What was the most unusual moment today?
- What are the questions running through my head right now?
- If I see this text tomorrow, what do I want to remind him?
The advantage of writing before going to bed is: you will find that many observations that you did not notice during the day will automatically surface. This is the most amazing side effect of freewriting—it helps you organize your experiences and thoughts today.
Three easy misunderstandings
Having taught so many students, I have seen the points where most people get stuck:
Misunderstanding 1: Thinking that you need to write a lot every day Wrong. It’s better to write for 5 minutes every day than to write for 3 hours on weekends. The development of writing habits depends on frequency, not single intensity.
Misunderstanding 2: Thinking that writing must be “meaningful” Wrong. Free writing is not for publishing, but for practicing. 90% of the content will not be read again after it is written, but the accumulation of 90% gives the remaining 10% a chance to become a good article.
Misunderstanding 3: Thinking that you need to write a complete article Wrong. The unit of free writing is a fragment, not an article. You could write about the same cup of coffee three days in a row - which makes perfect sense because you’re training your detail-seeing muscles.
I have mentioned before in “Two foundations of writing: sense of object and sense of image”: The foundation of sense of image is “how many specific scenes you have recorded in your daily life that others have not recorded.” Free writing is the cheapest way to build this muscle.
The next step in freewriting: from personal practice to content system
When free writing becomes your daily routine, you will naturally encounter the next question: “I have material, but how do I turn it into publishable content?”
This is the starting point of why I opened the “AI Content Production System Workshop”: to turn the materials accumulated through free writing into content assets that you can stably produce through a five-layer process (material collection, style setting, first draft writing, AI flavor removal, and multi-platform distribution).
In other words: Freewriting is the loose phase, content systems is the tight phase – both are needed, but the order is important. Without the accumulation of free writing, no matter how good the system is, it will be in vain; with materials, without a system, it is just a diary.
If you have started free writing and accumulated some materials, and want to turn them into stable content output:
👉AI Content Production System Workshop (6/28, limited to 16 seats)
I will take you to convert the accumulation of 5 minutes every day into a skill module that AI can collaborate with, so that your writing can change from waiting for inspiration to a stable output.
One last message for you:
Writing is never a matter of talent. Actually, it is a matter of not having started.
Even if you only write three lines today, it is still three lines farther away than someone who has been thinking about it for three years but has not written.
Start 5 minutes after your meal today.
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