I started freewriting in earnest during the pandemic as a way to connect to others, which in hindsight strikes me as a little odd. Writing is often a solitary endeavor that, unless part of a writing group, is typically a one-way share. Someone writes the writing, someone reads the writing. Sure, the digital life we currently occupy opens the possibility of a more dynamic relationship between writer and reader, but the process itself is still one of solitary effort.

In the middle of the pandemic, tired of seeing the minute-by-minute evolution of faces I loved, craving the space and quietude of the home that was now in constant movement and with constant background noise, I found myself an escape on Clubhouse. Long story, short – a digital party line/meeting place using voice instead of 140 characters or less.

In this space I found writers trying to find inspiration from connection in a world that was forcing physical space and thwarting face to face serendipity. It allowed people’s voices to carry the emotion, the baggage and shading of life that text, email and even zoom’s blackened off-camera screen couldn’t convey. It offered a new chance at community at a time when everyone was in their own silos.

In this space, I found connection.

I stumbled into the aptly named room “Freewrite Friday” one Friday evening. There was a ‘stage’ where the room’s host held the power of speech and speakers were invited to voice opinions, share ideas and give feedback. Feeling a bit like a voyeur sitting in the ‘audience’, I listened in to glean the rules of engagement.

Chit chat subsided and instruction began.

“We’re going to give the group a topic, then we will go around to everyone on stage and everyone will give one word related to the topic. Once everyone has given a word, we will set the timer and everyone will write for 7 minutes trying to use as many of the words as possible. Bragging rights to those that can fit them all in! After the time is up, anyone that wants to share what they’ve written is invited to come up and read it to us – especially first timers!”

My brain felt weird at that moment. It was what I imagined a teeny tiny aneurysm must feel like, until I remembered the anxiety that often poked me and shrugged the dramatic shadow back to its corner.

The words populated the space faster than I’d expected. I looked at the page I’d noted them on and wondered how this mishmash of vocabulary could possibly become some bit of coherent writing. That first round, I didn’t even try. I listened to tapping of the keyboard and the music that one of the people on stage played, which I found slightly annoying as the music had lyrics and ‘how could anyone write with lyrics in the background?!’ I listened to the group shares – utterly amazed at what was clearly a pool of talent into which I’d tripped. Without thinking, I tried on the second go.

I did not share that first night. My voice wouldn’t articulate what was on the paper. It refused to roll off my tongue in private, no less in front of others. But I did go back to that room the next Friday, and eventually I did read my work. In doing so, I realized some important lessons about the exercise of freewriting.

Freewriting as a window.

During the pandemic, most of us were holed up in our tiny little boxes with our small/medium/large pandemic pods trying to keep at bay the latest big bad wolf in the world of viruses. Everything was closed off from everything else. We would look outside, sort of. We would long for what life had been, sort of. We were trying to survive, and only just beginning to understand that some new way of being would be on the other side of whatever this was.
Freewriting gave space and oxygen to a surprising creative spark in me. It connected me with others, literally all over the country and increasingly all over the world, putting me in a virtual reading hour to hear fictionalized real life stories using ridiculous words.

The more often I joined the room, I found that people somehow always, ALWAYS wrote about themselves, or something deeply significant to themselves, with the jumbled mess of vocabulary. I could look into the windows of their lives and understand something new or anew. I would meet people that I would never have met due to [insert whatever obstacle you can think of] and receive the gift of witnessing their spark. Witnessing their attempt to write something profound and creative with a turn of phrase that would stun everyone listening, that would instead hint at or even expose one of the cards they held in their hand, close to their chest.

The power of showing up and trying to put things together that we had only one word of influence over, forced everyone to get personal. It left no room for constructing an intricate facade to hide behind. It was a box filled with props from decades of forgotten shows. We each took the chosen props and donned them in whatever way made sense to us. Without trying, or often realizing, the act of writing put us in front of one of our windows and bared our hearts for the world to see.

Freewriting as a door.

The funny thing about sharing something as personal as your writing is the momentum that it can build. Like initiating a step forward, once your weight shifts you either move forward or fall over.

Sharing my writing felt like walking through a door. One day, you pick your head up from whatever it was that was consuming you and realize there’s a door you had never noticed before. It may be cracked or wide, but it is open. And there’s an understanding. It’s one of those doors that once you go through there’s no really going back. It’s a ‘you can’t unring a bell’ sort of thing.

Seeing the opportunity and then choosing to step into it are completely different. Writing was putting on the old props that were thrown at you, in the best way you could. Sharing your writing was taking the steps onto the stage, in front of an audience, dressed in those props.
Choosing to step through that door, onto that stage opened up a space in me I couldn’t have conceived existing until I did it. I wasn’t a writer… I was someone who wanted to and occasionally did write stuff. I was someone who thought about writing – a lot. I was someone who grieved missed opportunities to get my thoughts down before they floated away. I was someone who longed to finally find connection with those that would understand what I was trying to say under my constant use of metaphor.

Stepping through the door and onto the stage shifted my perspective of me.

Freewriting as a mirror.

I’ve been searching for myself under a whole lot of life-rubble for awhile. Perhaps that will be fertilizer for future writings, but for now it’s enough to say the search and rescue mission has been slow going and oftentimes has made me question its usefulness. Wouldn’t it be easier to just start over? Shouldn’t I just be who I am now? Couldn’t I just get a new canvas and create me as my best self? Fortunately, that’s not the way it works.

Freewriting in the way I learned, sharing the way I did, seeing the experience as I was able to, all of it stuck me in front of the most uncomfortable and useful mirror.
Realizing what we were showing to one another during our shares, it (finally) dawned on me, ‘I wonder what I would see if I could look in my own window.’ That’s when my attention turned towards a mirror that I realized had always been sitting nearby. I started to invest time looking in it, at me.

I’m still practicing looking at myself. I’m still finding novel things and novel perspectives on old things. I’m still amazed at times, and flummoxed at others. But what I feel most often is gratitude.

Though I don’t go into that particular space anymore, I still write. Had I never joined that space, I am fairly confident I wouldn’t have found my way here to the Elephant Journal and the Academy. I most certainly would have never joined the Academy and been preparing to Find my Voice this spring.

I hope if you are reading this you know you have it in you too. I hope you know that even if you’re not ready to walk through the door, that’s ok. But perhaps, you might consider sitting in front of your mirror and investing some time in you.

In looking for connection to others, I have found a wonderful friend in myself and believe the same is waiting for you.