The Value of “Stream of Consciousness” Writing

When you are a content creator — and especially if you have been one for a long time — it is easy to fall into certain habits and routines… and never venture ”outside” the lines you have established for yourself.

Of course, there are dozens (maybe hundreds?) of pieces of advice and tips and what have you, to help people break these patterns. Which, ironically, simply suggest that you create a different habit to replace the one you have gotten stuck in.

See the problem?

One of the most popular — so widely used here on Hive that it even has its own community — is the ”five minute freewrite.”

But whereas freewriting does involve a degree of flow-of-consciousness, it also involves very structured things like ”staying on topic” and perhaps even ”clockwatching” because you don’t want to finish your post ”in mid-thought or mid-sentence.”

Maybe it’s just my way of saying that for me, anyway, it’s not an entirely useful exercise. Besides, I loathe doing creative things under time pressure. But that's just my personality.

Many years ago, I read a popular book called ”The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron, which contained perhaps the most useful tool I have found — as a writer/blogger/content creator — which is ”Morning Pages.”

I find it useful for two reasons:

For one, it truly is stream-of-consciousness writing. Of course I am — technically speaking — ”doing it wrong” because the original idea revolves around writing by hand, not typing on a keyboard.

That said, it is an approach that asks you to simply sit down and write whatever comes into your head; no topics, no time limits, no nothing. You just write, even if it is utter and complete nonsense. The only rule, really, was the requirement to write three (longhand) pages.

The second really useful thing — at least for me — is that you do this thing first thing in the morning, before you do ANYthing else.

Sure, you can get your morning coffee or tea, or whatever… but no looking at your phone, no checking your email, no turning on the TV for background noise, no starting breakfast or doing housework.

The idea here is that you literally want to put your ”unpolluted” thoughts into writing, unaffected by anything much more than maybe your dreams.

And there’s no editing, or going back and making it better.

Which, I think, is probably why the original recipe calls for writing it long hand, rather than typing.

I have long chosen to ”cheat” by typing, because I often end up cherry picking ideas out of my Morning Pages, and it’s handy to just edit what’s already there, rather than having to type from my handwriting. If I did, it would become boring and tedious, and I would likely just stop.

I did write by hand for almost seven years, though, before switching to typing — some of the time.

The value here is that we often have the freshest and most creative ideas if we can just get to them before our mind becomes cluttered by everything in the world around us. Email, the news, social media, message services and such have a way of clouding our thinking and altering our moods… and — I have to say it — stealing our creative energy, even if we may get some good ideas for topics we might want to explore.

In truth, I have actually found it more valuable to simply wait till the next day… and if something actually held my attention from the day before, some version of it will be dislodged by my flow-of-consciousness writing, the following day. Remember, the world didn't implode, back in the days when we had to wait for the newspaper to tell us yesterday's news!

Of course, I’d be lying if I claimed that I am able to do this every single day. I don’t; I can’t — my mind is far too "scattered." Besides, my ”to do list” is usually massive and left over from the day before… and taking an extra hour in the morning to simply sit and write is outside the scope of my reality.

At least for the time being. Wish it weren’t, but it is.

But I do try to do this exercise at least once a week, and it does help. If nothing else, at least I get to dump a bunch of half-baked ideas I realize are unlikely to ever ”become anything.”

It’s a bit like de-fragging my brain.

Yikes! I’m showing my age… is ”de-fragging” even a thing anymore, in the world of computers?

And so, there I’ll leave it.

And yes, this post was written entirely from start to finish, as a flow-of-consciousness exercise! Other than a couple of typo fixes and adding images, I'm leaving it "as is."

Try it! You might like it!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great rest of your day!

Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation! I do my best to answer comments, even if it sometimes takes a few days!

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Created at 2025.01.09 14:20 PST
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