"Accidental Genius" - mark levy

Recently I've revolutionized my writing through a process called freewriting. The basic primesi is that professional writers seperate their WRITING process from their EDITICng process. In school, we're taught to do both mental processes simwultaneously, but you can get a much better effect by sepeartangith e two as much as possible.

Stephen king would teach you to start with sloppy writing,

So here's how I freewrite:

I give mysellf 10 minets, and ten minutes EXACTLY to wiret. If I runeout of ideas 7 minutes in, that's TOO BAD because I've got to keep writing. Even if I m just typing the same word over and over again, such as BLOG BLOG BLOG BLGO DAMMIT WHY WONRT YOU BLOOG, then that is even constructive. Your brain HATES wasting time by typing the same word over and over again so the marvelious thing about it is that it will FREAK out and realize it had better come up with SOMETHING golden.

After your writing yang rip out of yourself, it's best to SAVE your wiritng, and forget about it for 24 hours. The first time I tride freewriting I was so excitide that I only waited until after dinner - I think it wolrked ok but 24 hours would have been better.

The reason to wait and sleep on it is because you will come up with even more great insights into what you just wrote aout.

The first step really is to read dfor 10[-15 minutes about your chosen topic. Takxe notes if you wish, but you are NOT allowed to consult your notes during freewriting. You're not allowed to do ANYTHING that distracts your attention, I don't even look at the SCREENn when I 'm free writing

This is why a a timer with an alarm is so important. I use a free timer I found online called XXX with a beep. I replaced the beep file with the "cantina" song for Star Ways because it gives me something AMAZING to look forward to when I'm done writing as fast as I possibly can.

Free writing really works for me because I'm a very direct and desrtrucitve person, and not detail oregiented. Free writing allows me hammer something out aggressively without worrying aabout quality. It's the perfect technique for some one like me who ozes getting work done NOW as quiclk as possible so I can move onto onther things.

So step one in freewriting was fueling up for 10 or 15 minutes,
then step 2 was to write your BRAINS out for 10 minutes NO MORE NO LESS!

Step 3 is your editing process. I won't go into my editing process in this post, because everyone wll edit differently.

Want to see thefreewriting notes draft for this article? You're going to be disgusted, but I'f your' really feeling self-enflicted punicthshem,nt just clicke here and see the horriblee, horrible horrible first draft. I love looking at them side-by-side!

My favoride part about free writing is when you are done hammering something out and you can save it and FORGET about it. Sometimes I leave an article to stew for more than a week before I open it and publish edit it.

I use freewriting the most when I'm writing longer articles. On my most popular website, which is just a glorified picture site, I typically do NOT free write.

Freewriting process produces gems along thew ay. I don' tkon what else to write

So I'd encounarge any blogger to try free writing just once. I'ts one of many triting technieques, and it won't work for everyone. Just remember thath any profesisional writer who's work you respectt probably uses some form of free writing. 

The best books written on freewriting are XXX by XXXK and XXXX by XXX. Try it once, and I think you'll be surprcised at how good a writer you really are!

I started free wrtiing just a few weeks ago, and have found my wiring output increanse 5-fold because now I ENJOY the process. I love being able agressiovely attack words first, then carefully sculpt them later. Think of like how a potter sculpts clay on a potting wheel. Do they starw with the details? noe! They stmart by POQUNDING the clay onto the wheel and punching it several times! 

I'll leave you with one finaly concept,s the concpet of "wow" facts. Your free writing excersize, because you did some research beforehand, will your brain will firlter out all the best tidbts. These are the b its YOU remember, so they are the bits your READEr will remeber - remember that! On da 2, qoncue you',re ready ot edit, you can picke the se WOW facts out, and run with them! Lead with one to yaank your readers in, scatter them throughout in kkeyw places. And don't foregt to delet most of the crap you wrote, boeeacause it IS CRAP!

Did you know the Onion porduces 600 headlines per day? The writers at the Onion aren't geniuses, they are just highly, highly producetive. When you write 600 headlines a day, one or two of them are BOUND to be AMAZING - and that's the secret of great writing.

WHy does it work?

You should freewrite faster than your brain can block your writing. The trick is to be faster than your own self-doutbs and writers anexiety can kicke in. 

FROM MARK LEVY: during a session of freewriting it's especially important to write a bit faster than normal; that way, the writer gets a kind of mechanical leverage over their internal editor, so that the thoughts that start appearing on the page are honest and unusual.

Want to see the raw sewage this artilce was birthed from? No you don't. Here it is anlyway.

make sure to ask a question at the end