What Does it Take to Write Freely?

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Image by Jeyaratnam Caniceus from Pixabay

In an interview with the Creative Penn podcast, Robin Finn offers her insights into how writers can you write freely, release inhibiting blocks, focus on the strengths in your writing, and avoid critical voice. A few quotes from the interview:

“It is not true that your daily life is not important. So much of what life is about is the daily aspects of living, and they’re metaphors for so much more. So this idea that writing about my life because I didn’t climb Mount Everest isn’t important is, again, just a limiting belief, and it’s not true.”

“I think there is a place for critical feedback, but it’s much, much later in the writing process. Most writers they get excited, and then they get feedback, and what happens is the critical feedback really ruins the joy of expression. It confuses us, and it disconnects us from that thread that we’re just getting of the story. So I really, really caution writers to not receive critical feedback early on in the work.”

“If you’re in a writing group, and it makes you want to write less, it’s not a good group.”

“Often writers will say to me, “Well, I don’t think I should write my love story because there’s so many love stories already written.” I just feel like, again, that’s a limiting belief because your love story in your voice hasn’t been written. No one can write that but you. So it’s not like you have to write something that’s never been written before because your story in your unique voice is 100% new.”

“You have to allow yourself the free rein to write anything…If when we write, and while we’re writing we’re trying to edit out things that we don’t want to share, we really screw up the process. So it’s really important to understand writing is that process that you and you alone do, and you can be fully free to write whatever it is that you want.”