In Chapter two of Writing With Power, Peter Elbow suggests the practice of free writing as a method for getting words down on paper.  This method, which he calls, “the best all-around practice in writing” (13), is an old staple in the creative writing and poetry workshops that I have experienced.  Simply writing nonstop for a set amount of time, usually with some kind of prompt, is championed as a method for getting out of your own way, accessing the unconscious mind, and generating fresh and often painful images.

As a creative writer, I’ve used free writing to produce work and to generate ideas.  Elbow mentions this as a value of the technique, but he also has another quality in mind.  “The goal of free writing is in the process, not the product” (13), he claims, and even more drastically he suggests that some free writing is more useful in the trash can, an idea that makes the creative writer in me let out a silent scream of pain.  The thought of tossing the product of my imagination into the trashcan is almost unthinkable, a realization that exposes how attached I am to my own thoughts, but I see Elbow’s point.  For him, free writing is an end in itself, a purposeless purpose to borrow a Kantian idea.  The free writer is practicing his chops, getting used to putting words down on the paper, developing a second nature or a habit for writing.

These are all excellent ideas and they have worked wonders for my creative writing, but I’m left to question how well this process would translate into academic writing.  I was honestly stunned to realize that I had driven a mental wedge between these two types of writing.  Creative writing has always been ‘what I do’, an integral part of my identity.  Academic writing, on the other hand, has been a necessity, something I had to do in order to get a grade and progress in my studies.  Could Elbow’s free writing be an effective bridge between the two distinct writers I have become?  More interestingly, could I use the technique to just get rolling and focus more on the process or would I habitually hunt for ideas in the results?  I decided to try, to use my usual free writing time (about ten to fifteen minutes each morning) to explore ideas about the process.  I decided to free write about free writing.

I reread the Elbow chapter, set an egg timer for ten minutes and went to work. It went well, producing a number of ideas and revealing a fair share of anxiety about writing a paper in general.  Here are some of the results transcribed word for word:

On the value of free writing an exercise I have done for years until I am offered Elbow’s book and he gives me validation– slightly modified I always using free writing wholly as a creative tool–never as a means to an academic paper — instead gruel over each word — cook my ideas as Elbow says — so Peter you have opened me to new avenues — maybe a paper about free writing — using free writing techniques — and incorporation excerpts from freewriting in the body — so writing about the process using the process and mapping the process — but what argument? — thesis?  For free writing but an exploration — a creative free writer turning creative technique on academic work – a will this work question with a conclusion – but can I pull it off?

My mind veered off here to more heated topics, like my cat purring by my feet, but the meat of my general idea is there.  It’s necessary to back track here because the linear nature of this essay gives the impression that I went into this exercise with a set idea of what I wanted to write about, but in reality the free writing phrase “maybe a paper about free writing — using free writing techniques — and incorporation excerpts from free writing in the body –” was the origin of the idea.  When I returned to what I had written days later I was shocked to see the idea for my paper staring me in the face, especially since I didn’t remember writing it.

It’s obvious that already the creative writer in me had hijacked this exercise, I was using the technique to generate ideas, and not just as a way to practice the process.  I decided to use my next freewriting session as a meditation on the process itself.  Here is an excerpt of that attempt.

free writing exploration metaphors for meditation applied to the process – taming a wild monkey or bull – the bull cycle applied to free writing would be interesting or applied to writing in general — have to dig up the story -where? – internet most likely – saturday begin work – five pages in no time — outline? No — well maybe — unconventional for me use of new method – what else? More Zen metaphors –watching thoughts like smoke rising from a fire — focus on breathing – on meditation process – (on writing) – and let thoughts pass — but is it easily transferable – writing very active – physically moving – sitting involves stillness – slowing down – free writing involves moving nonstop – writing whatever comes to mind just to get writing – but it does seem to teach writing – since I’ve done this morning exercise my writing has been easier – more alive – more controlled – so practicing no control fosters control? Does that make sense – perhaps give up control satisfies the need enough to allow focus more readily – perhaps – or perhaps free writing is more controlled than I’m aware of – perhaps this discipline requires the ultimate control – generate nonstop thought for a sustained period of time

Several things are interesting about this last session.  First, I seem to be more focused on creating metaphors for free writing, seemingly attempting not just to do it but also to get a handle on exactly what it is.  I liken it to meditation but find obvious contradictions existing between the two.  I’m also attempting to decide how I will go about beginning the actual work of the essay, even making an appointment with myself–“saturday begin work.”

Yet, beyond the actual content of the free writing, something substantial stands out in both examples, my almost unconscious use of the dash to break up my thoughts.  Elbow might say that this is my internal editor checking up on my creative process but this tendency seems indicative of another trend I noticed in both of my samples.  No matter how chaotic the writing is in the first few lines, eventually something grabs hold of the words, a tentative order becomes established, a narrative is developed.  Elbow mentions this tendency in Writing with Power.

When you write quickly…as in free writing, your syntactic units hang together.  Even if you change your mind in mid-sentence…you produce a clear break.  You don’t try to plaster over two or three syntactic units as one, as you often do in painstaking writing.  Free writing produces syntactic coherence and verbal energy which gradually transfer to your more careful writing.     (16-17)

He claims that in free writing we learn something about our mind, it abhors disorder and when faced with chaos it imposes a skeleton or scaffolding to serve as an unconscious makeshift structure.  Perhaps it is this unconscious reflex that is truly exercised in the practice.  Learning to get out of the way and let the mind impose its unconscious order on our conscious chaos may be the essence of what Elbow calls the mysterious underground process that leads to powerful writing.

All of this sounds great, but it leaves me with a sense of uneasiness about my own writing prejudices and the metaphors I employ to think about my own process.  Writing as a journey toward myself or as an exploration of my unconscious mind are strong ideas that have been instilled in me from the beginning of my creative life, but these too must be evaluated scrutinized.  My inherent expressive tendencies are obvious in both of my writing metaphors along with an inherent self-consciousness.

In an essay entitled “Writing with Teachers: A Conversation with Peter Elbow,” David Bartholomae argues that the strong turn young writers take toward this kind of individualism is rooted in an anxiety about all that precedes them.

Students write in a space defined by all the writing that has preceded them, writing the academy insistently draws together: in the library, in the reading list, in the curriculum.  This is the busy, noisy, intertextual space–one usually hidden in our representations of the classroom; one that becomes a subject in the classroom when we ask young writers to think about, or better yet, confront their situatedness (481).

He uses what I call a ‘crowded room’ metaphor to talk about writing.  Whereas Elbow’s writer is alone with himself and a blank page, Bartholmae’s is surrounded by all of the writers and cultural influences that have ever been, some out in the open, and some elusive and hidden.  It’s no surprise that realizing one’s ‘situatedness’ in a broader span of history sends many student writers fleeing into a solipsistic wonderland, but in Bartholomae’s model even the writing teachers are plagued by this anxiety and it invariably shows in the structure of the classroom.

There are many classrooms where students are asked to imagine that they can clear out a space to write on their own, to express their own thoughts and ideas, not reproduce those of others….The open classroom; a free writing.  This is the master trope (481).

In a world of postmodern discourses this free space for writing seems like a fantasy.  Roland Barthes long ago announced the death of the author and Barthomae claims that Elbow’s work is part of a vast project that is attempting to revitalize the corpse of the creator and put her back on her rightful throne.

I find that I agree with Bartholomae for the most part, I understand the deep desire to escape the influence of a long literary history and am also in touch with the impossibility of such an escape.  But I don’t think that his argument renders free writing useless and I think his accusations about elbows resurrection plans are a bit extreme.  Free writing as a tool can benefit from an awareness of ‘situatedness.’

To support this opinion I can turn to more of my own experience.  In an Introduction to Graduate Literary Studies course I read Barthes’ semiotic analysis of the Eiffel tower and was asked to create a similar essay analyzing a sign in my own culture.  As Bartholmae pointed out, the particular ‘crowded room’ I was being asked to enter, one populated by giants and theories of which I had only a cursory understanding, intimidated me.  I didn’t, however, flee into the method, but instead decided to mimic Barthes in an attempt to honor the influence he had on me and to use academic free writing to get my ideas straight.  In the essay Barthes argues that the Eiffel tower is the perfect sign because it serves no purpose other than signifying Paris.  It was this sense of uselessness that gave me an idea. I wanted to analyze the image of the lazy male in some of the commercials I had been seeing. To me this was the perfect sign of what I called Americanness. I free wrote for ten minutes and produced the following:

the commercial american fat slob–relaxing–slothfully eating the worst food–lethargy and apathy a badge of honor–the gut as the symbol­­–the sign of entitlement–americanness–the remote control his weapon or tool–avoids vegetables indeed in some commercials he is wholly unaware of the existence of vegetables–doesn’t cook or clean or even work it seems–he is the heroic couch potato–validated laziness–an image of the new value of sloth–his passivity is absolute–his apathy complete–his lethargy raised almost to an insinuated art–he conquers the world             from the couch accidentally–When success falls upon him he shrugs and continues his deep TV watching–the wife the only active member of the commercial universe–seen as neurotic hyperactive or just a plain nag as she tries to rouse the motionless hero into action

I returned to this raw material a few days later and picked out the ideas I really like, the slob as a hero, the wife doing battle with the hero, and his motionless success in the universe of the ad.  It was clear that the hero metaphor could give the piece a powerful ironic twist.  I reworked the ideas and wrote this opening paragraph.

Lethargy rules the day in today’s American commercial.  A man—it’s almost always a man—sits on a couch or a lounge chair, apathetically watching a television.  He is the great hero-slob, sleepy eyed and disheveled, fixated on food and sports, and sometimes engaged in a battle of “wits” with his actively insistent yet completely non-threatening wife.  In the universe of the ad he is the very spectacle of Americanness–uneducated but empowered, indifferent but somehow blessed, inactive but always managing to come out on top.  His foes are either passively vanquished or initiated into his world of inaction.

I wasn’t sure how to keep the idea going.  I had two basic characters, the hero-slob and his wife, now I needed to cite commercial examples of them engaged in the mock battle of wits I had promised.  I spent a few days free writing this time, using the method to remember the commercials that had led me to this idea and how they annoyed me with their generalized portrayal of gender roles.  Then it was just a matter of rereading the twenty or so pages and choosing my favorites.  The essay filled out nicely with solid examples from a few commercials and a moral ending to boot.  I include that ending here.

The husband tricks the wife into going to Sears to buy tools, while she hatches a plot to get him to eating healthier.  The wife nurtures the children and sings them to sleep; the husband gets tongue-tied and can’t talk to his son about sex, drugs, college, the future, or anything.  The wife accepts the man as a bad communicator and looks at him lovingly for trying.  She gets diamonds.  He gets peace and quiet.  No one really communicates, so no one ever gets angry, starts an argument, or leaves.  The commercial family is also a spectacle of Americanness—a sign of the lies we like to tell ourselves about our family values.

Based on my success, I am inclined to endorse Elbow’s free writing process as a useful tool for academic as well as creative writing, but I remain open to being dissuaded.  Free writing has its limitations and I agree with Bartholmae that it seems to ignore the importance of influence and reading.  But no one theory of literature or composition should be accepted in full at the exclusion of all others.  Free writing is one of many tools that a good writer should have under his belt while the search for new methods of composition continues.  I cite the advise of the Black Feminism critic Deborah E. McDowell who said “we should…salvage what we find useful in past methodologies, reject what we do not, and where necessary, move toward inventing new methods” (1428).  This is a sound plan for the critical as well as the creative writer.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Bartholomae, David.  “Writing with Teachers: A Conversation with Peter Elbow.” College Composition and Communication. 46.1 (Feb. 95): 62.71.
• Elbow, Peter. Writing With Power.  New York:  Oxford U. Press, 1998.
• McDowell, Deborah E.  “New Directions for Black Feminist Criticism.” The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. David H. Richter, Ed. New York: Bedford Books, 1998.  Pp. 1422-30.