The goal of this practice will be to accustom you to regular free writing, which will help your overall thinking, processing, and confidence. The idea is simple: write for ten minutes per day, as quickly as you can, without thinking or editing. This will help you outrun your internal censor and get to your freshest, deepest consciousness. If you’re able to write by hand, write by hand in a notebook, ignoring lines and margins, going as quickly and freely as possible. Try to avoid using a precious expensive notebook or anything that will make you feel like what you write needs to be “good”. Feel free to write the worst shit in the world. If you prefer to type, use a word processing app, or a google doc, or your notes app, and do the same thing, but with typing. I find it helpful to turn off my wifi and use a timer app when doing this practice on my computer. I use Howler timer (but I’m sure there are many that work just as well) and I like to type in iA writer, set to full screen, but a special app is not necessary. If you’re not sure which way (hand writing or typing) works for you, try both. If you would like to get fancy, you can do ten minutes of completely free writing, and then ten minutes of writing following one of the prompts below. When following a prompt, you are trying to balance thinking of things and writing them down with not really thinking and letting it all flow. If you get way off topic, just write “what I was trying to say is…” and get back to what you’re trying to say.
If you would like to write in response to a topic, you can work through the following list, one topic per day until the end of the workshop.
MAPS
BREAKFAST
AGING
SIMPLICITY
COMPLEXITY
WEAVING
IMAGINARY MYTH
INTERFACE
EARLIEST MEMORY
MAX CRINGE
SUNSETS
STAYING UP ALL NIGHT