Journaling

Journaling; blog, blog. Blog, blog. Blog almost makes me laugh out loud thinking about free writing. Some of the articles or posts explaining ways to practice free writing state to set a timer for x number of minutes and just write the first thing that comes to mind, even if it is just one word. Write that same word until the timer goes off or another word surfaces. It’s fun.

When thinking about what the outcome of a personal free writing session would be, I can see an entire page of the word “blank”- step over to word association and come up with “blank page”- go one more and come out with “blank page white background”. And that is a healthy association, cryptic but normal. 

Struggling with writer’s block is not a pleasant experience- it is frustrating when every time you look at a blank page your brain decides to hibernate. Especially when you love writing no matter how bad some works may be, you still love when the words come together like a beautiful sunrise.

When searching for the light in the darkness of writer’s block, free association writing and word association exercises can help your conscious-self open your unconscious mind whatever conscience. Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud’s work on unconsciousness lives in tools we can use to keep moving forward with ourselves and our work. 

Free Writing + Word Association = Writing

       

                                                              

           

Free Writing Authenticity

Questioning the authenticity of any free association write is reasonable. There’s time to think about a prompt you’ve created for yourself or a prompt you chose to write about in exercise. Holding thoughts during writing is not uncommon; it’s well implemented in poetics. Poetry in its own uniqueness requires keeping things concealed while aesthetically describing what is being held in the shadows, the arcane. Could something you are unaware of be influencing you? Sure.  

How often does anyone just write freely without constraint? There are word choices to make, punctuation to consider; the audience and the impact words may have on them. Writer's want to engage readers and that takes planning just like outlining an essay or a chapter for a novel.

Free writing or steam of consciousness exercises aren't used for writing the blog post or novel, they're used more for self-exploration. To help discover things that may otherwise go unnoticed. It's about opening yourself up and letting words or phrases flow freely.

For example, the following photo was taken about seven years ago during the "golden hour" on a site where an old house was being demolished. At that time the scene triggered my creative thinking process. It still does. 

It's symbolic of constraint and love and the shovel handle still reminds me of a pencil- "we've got to write ourselves out of this bind we've got ourselves into." These were some of my first thoughts, like love at first sight. Even though the blog post is intentional, a good prompt can still promote 20 minutes of "stream of consciousness writing." Don't be afraid to write or release what any given prompt brings to mind- dropping your guard opens the road to authentic free writing.

edited, 06/16/2026