On writing about writing

What happens when you don't know what to write about and you just start writing? This.

What do you do when you want to write but don’t know what you want to say?

Seriously — what do you do?

I freewrite¹. I open a blank document (or, less often, a notebook) and write. Write whatever my little heart and little brain desire. I do this with minimal self-editing (but, depending on my mood, do allow for some). Sometimes it’s utter nonsense. Sometimes, I write “I don’t know what to say but here I am, hi!”. Sometimes I’m able to process some hard stuff I need to process. Sometimes, I’m lead down a narrative path and end up producing something I actually kind of like. A lot of the pieces I’ve published on Substack do start with a prompt or idea, but a few of them started with a blank page, an ‘I don’t know’ statement, and then I let myself see where the wind takes me.

This is one of those pieces. As I’m typing this exact sentence, I don’t actually know where this is going to go or where we’re going to end up. Isn’t that fun? (Do I have a skewed definition of fun?)

While I’m going to edit this one from this point forward for grammar and spelling, I’m going to see if I can get to something publishable at the end without tweaking—so the idea of this piece is that it doesn’t just start as a freewrite, it ends as one too. We’ll see where we go.

Look, freewriting isn’t revolutionary. Since this is a freewrite I’m not going to go and do research and find the origin, but I’m going to guess it’s a really really really old practice. Like, whenever we realized we could take the thoughts in our head at put them on paper. I’m going to guess it started then.

I myself first heard of the concept in 7th grade in English class. We had to keep these ‘writer’s notebooks’² where we were to make writing something we practiced. 7th grade was 21 years ago (typing that made me almost vomit but moving on), so I don’t quite remember the rules, but we could write about whatever we wanted, and needed to make sure to submit a certain amount of entries. Every so often, our teacher would collect them and grade them. But I also remember we could tape pages together if we wrote something ‘person’ that we didn’t want our teacher to read. In hindsight that was kind of cool of her—in order to really let our 7th grade selves dive deep into writing, she knew we’d be best supported by being able to fully express ourselves. She would still count those entries and give us credit for them, which was cool too.

And then of course there’s the famous morning pages from The Artist’s Way, a book that I’ve owned for almost 15 years and just read chapter 1 a few nights ago. If you’re unfamiliar, Morning Pages are a fundamental practice from the Artist’s Way where you write three pages of stream of consciousness writing every morning. These pages are supposed to be written by hand, first thing in the morning, in a standard 8.5”x11” notebook (no cheating with that ‘Field Notes’ notebook you picked up at Urban Outfitters in 2012, sorry).

I’ve been doing my own version of the Morning Pages for I think two weeks now (again, not going to check, but maybe I’ll footnote it while I’m re-reading this later³). I will again say that it is my own version of this in case any Artist’s Way purists find their way here and want to write me a citation for doing things wrong. The purists won’t like that I am even comparing what I do to Morning Pages. But I’m going to tell you about it anyway 😈.

The first wrong thing I do is I write them not first thing in the morning. BAD! I love the idea of writing immediately after waking up, to get the gunk out of the brain as Julia Cameron puts it. That’s such a beautiful idea and that is just not where I am right now.

I have a child who gets out of bed at 7am every. single. day. Holidays too. I always get a chuckle when my phone is like “woah woah woah there, tomorrow is a HOLIDAY surely you want to turn off you’re alarm?” and I am sitting there like “nope I do not thank you”.

And I know 7am isn’t early, especially to like the disciplined crowd, but I am not the disciplined crowd. I roll out of bed, use the bathroom, and go into my son’s room every morning — those are the first things I do, and so Morning Pages do not fit into that time of day.

I do try to do them early. I prefer to do them alone and in quiet, one so I don’t get distracted but two so that when I am with my family I am present. During the week, that means I do my morning writing after my son goes to daycare but before I start my work day. It has actually become a really nice transition moment between activities for me.

This gets more challenging over the weekend, as our days start to blend and we hop from one thing to another. I’m very often with my kid from the time he wakes up to when he goes down for his nap. So the weekend pages are either written at the breakfast table, among the playtime choas, or during naptime at noon. Not morning! The other day, I wrote them at like 10pm. OOPS! I totally forgot.

my son playing with fake candles while I write.

So yes—my morning pages, if I’m even allowed to call them that—are not written in the morning.

They’re also not written by hand!!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s right. As of now, I am typing these bad boys. I am considering handwriting them eventually (or even just once to start), but the act of getting out a pen and paper is a barrier that often would prevent me from actually getting the writing done. I realize that sounds like the stupidest excuse to people who may or may not struggle with task initiation and other ADHD related things. But it’s true!

It also really hurts my hand when I write (and not after many pages — after a few sentences). I learned recently that that isn’t normal and it’s not supposed to hurt when you write—who knew! I’ve discovered I don’t actually know how to hold a pen, and while I’m trying to course correct it’s actually a really difficult thing to do at 33. I even bought a really expensive pen to try to course correct, but I get impatient and hold it the ‘wrong way’ anyway and give up because my hand starts hurting right after.

Those both sound so superficial writing them down but it’s made it so that typing is the thing I stick to and gravitate towards. I also don’t have the ‘right notebook,’ but maybe I’ll treat myself to one and try writing these bad boys out every once in awhile. I do see the benefit — while I type faster than I handwrite, that might actually be a bad thing for my stream of consciousness. Because I’m keeping up with fast typing, I don’t actually have the opportunity to slow down and let the words ‘pour out’ (this is something Julia Cameron has spoken to, and has done so much more eloquently than I just did. I’ll try to remember to find what she’s said and footnote it if I do)⁴.

But even though I do this daily writing horribly wrong, I find it to be a really helpful practice for myself. By letting myself work through whatever gunk is on my mind, I feel lighter and more able to move forward and get on with my day (or move on with getting to sleep, in the case of that one day). Sometimes they are nonsense, sometimes I say the same thing over and over again, but sometimes I come to conclusions I didn’t know I had in me! Sometimes, I get to the end and can’t even remember what I wrote about.

Freewriting as a daily practice has been really fun (and honestly, helpful), but it’s also the thing I come back to when I’m uninspired or itching to get something out on the page. I’m not short on ideas, thoughts, prompts, or drafts to build on and clean up, but I am often short on the desire to talk about those specific topics I jotted down in previous moments. Freewriting can be a great way to push past that block and ask myself "alright fine—if none of this is calling to me, what else do I want to say?”

Back when I first started my Substack, I wrote a few posts and then went dark for six weeks. I was feeling so guilty and anxious I just woke up one day and told myself to write something. I didn’t have to publish it, but I needed to put some thoughts on a page. I ended up writing something about how I handle things when I’m uninspired and honestly found it, well, inspiring (and helpful)⁵. It was really helpful to understand how I navigate moments when I don’t have the motivation, and I’ve carried those lessons with me in other areas of my life as well.

It doesn’t mean I’m perfect, but it has made me more self aware.

What else is there to say about freewriting? I’m sure there is more, but I think this could be a good place to stop. I’m going to reread this now, but if all goes well I’ll publish this as is, maybe add some footnotes, and maybe I’ll share some final thoughts when I’m done writing this.

This piece turned out way more meta than expected—a freewrite about freewriting! I didn’t think I had it in me, but hopefully a little glimpse under the hood at one of my little writing practices was enjoyable for you. It was fun for me to sit here and trust myself to come up with something, and I am glad I followed my chain of thoughts, seeing where we ended up!

Maybe I’ll do more of these ‘live freewrites’ (they need a better name, they’re not quite live but you get it). Maybe I’ll write more about my writing process. I’d be a bad newsletter author if I didn’t take this moment to ask: did you enjoy this? Should I do anything I mentioned again? Let me know!

Alright - the thoughts are slowing and the journey seems to be ending. Thanks, as always, for being here, and we’ll chat soon.

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Hi! That was fun. It’s me, post-freewrite Julie. That enjoyed writing that and I enjoyed reading that too. I really liked trusting the process and allowing myself to just dump on a page, seeing where we ended up.

I don’t think I need to add much else, but some housekeeping to set context/expectations: I wrote this two days ago, as a freewrite, and came back to read it and edit it now. Any thoughts I had while reading it I added as footnotes, also in italics, to this post. There is one footnote I added during the freewrite itself, and that one is not written in italics. Photos were added after the fact as well. I fixed obvious spelling errors, but kept other things that same I would normally change while editing (grammar, syntax, word choice, etc).

This piece did feel a bit meta and indulgent — writing about writing about writing, so I appreciate those who’ve stayed with me on this journey. And maybe it even resonates!

1. Post free-write thought: I also procrastinate, watch TV, do the dishes, refresh my Substack stats, and other generally avoidant behavior.

2. Footnotes in a freewrite? Jeez. I’m writing this one in real time, interrupting my flow and thoughts. Adding this footnote so I can add a link to the post where I shared my 7th grade writer’s notebook. It’s a silly one.

I found my school-sanctioned 'Writer's Notebook' from 7th grade

3. 16 days at time of writing, 18 days at time of editing

4. “When we write, we are connected from our heart to our hand. And when we type, we can go quickly past important points. And I sometimes have people say, "Oh, Julia, I'm so much faster when I type." And I say, ‘Fast is not what we're after, we're after depth and authenticity’.” — Julia Cameron on Guy Kawasaki’s Remarkable People Podcast

5.