Timed Writing Workshop -- Freeing Up the Subconscious in Writing

Title: Timed Writing Workshop -- Freeing Up the Subconscious in Writing Category: Story Process Clicks: 0 Listing added: Mar 9, 2008

I am indebted to Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones, for what has become one of the staples of my own writing practice. Though I don't do timed writing quite the way she says most of the time, I still find it essential to cutting through the murkiness of my own mind when I'm stuck, and for sharpening images while I'm working on a book.
Here is timed writing my way. I prefer working at a keyboard to writing in longhand, so I almost always type my timed writings directly into the computer. If you don't like doing raw material at a keyboard, try it anyway for a while. You can always go to a notebook and pen when you're waiting at the dentist's office---timed writing is much more interesting than reading the June, 1974 issue of Field and Stream that he still has in there. (After you've read the Patrick F. McManus article, anyway.)