So how do you do free writing? The first rule of writing practice is keep your hand moving, pick a specific period of time, it can be 10 2030 minutes, I recommend starting on a smaller amount of time such as 10 minutes, I would go at least 10 minutes to start though, so that it makes it worth your time. And you're able to go down into that zone that I was talking about, where it just kind of flows and kind of happens on its own. And there's a sort of effortlessness effort to doing free riding. So keeping your hand moving is one part of it, whatever happens, keep going. This gives you a chance to outpace the editor so it can't catch up.

Number two, lose control, let it rip, don't worry about what anyone thinks just right. And so that's probably counter or opposite of what we're taught that that's what you do when you free right, you lose control, you just go for it. You just let it flow and let it flow naturally. Number three, show Don't tell. In other words, not truck. But rusty blue Ford, not a crazy woman, but a woman with bloodshot eyes, wild silver hair and shaking hands.

If you write something vague, simply add specific details and move forward. So if you write something vague, don't worry about it. Just go down deeper and describe it a little more clearly. This doesn't mean you have to use overkill, but just show instead of tailoring. And keep in mind that show don't tell doesn't just apply to creative writing. It can apply to a scientific article, you don't just say what happened.

You describe the process. If you're doing a course you obviously don't just tell someone something, you show them how to do it. And if you're doing any other kind of writing this same rule applies in all of those situations. So consider this a rule. A base for all other kinds of writing and show don't tell is one example of that. Number four, don't think stick with your friends.

Thoughts, not. second thoughts are thoughts on thoughts stay with the first flash, it's our truth and has the most energy. And so that's another one that's counterintuitive. But it gives you a chance to get into that place where the most truthful things lie, if you've ever had that sort of quiet voice in the back of your head, and then there's another one that screaming at you, hopefully those are not audible. But basically, those two different voices in your mind are different. They're coming from different places, the quiet one on the inside of you is the one that has that energy.

For example, if you're taking a quiz, and it's multiple choice, and you don't know what the correct answer is, and you have this very quiet little instinct, that's the first blush that's the one that's usually correct. And that's the same place you're contacting when you free right? So don't think you just let things flow out of your unconscious mind. Kind of get in the zone. So To speak. Number five, don't worry about spelling, punctuation and grammar.

There is a time to do that later. But at this point, those don't matter. So if you misspell a word, just keep going. Don't worry about marking it out or anything like that. There is a time to step back and judge and look at your writing. But free riding is not that time.

So let the perfectionist go. Just throw him or her out and keep going. It's okay to make mistakes. And I'll give you permission to make those mistakes. It can be messy, it can make mistakes, it can be full of mistakes. That is fun, but keep going.

Number six, you are free to write the worst junk in the world. At this point you want to get ideas out so don't judge or worry about what comes out. Just let it come. Like I said before number seven, go for the juggler. If something scary comes up, dive into it or you'll spend all your life dancing around what has all the energy. So go for the jugular go for the scary stuff, even if it's the thing You're dancing around and not wanting to talk about Hemingway says write hard and clear about what hurts.

It has all the power. It may make you cry or laugh, but it won't kill you. And so it has all the power. So is there a time to stand back and evaluate your writing? Absolutely. But free writing is not that time.

If you follow the rules of writing practice, it will give you food for all other kinds of writing. And so now you do it. Now it's your turn to do it, pick a topic a question or a prompt, start with 10 minutes. That's a good baseline amount of time to start with gives you enough time to get into the zone. But it's not so much time that it's overwhelming for your first attempt. And so think about what project are you working on?

What writing are you doing? Or do you just want to create a daily writing practice and start from scratch? Are you working on a project, whatever the case Maybe if you're doing course creation if you're doing a specific lecture for that course, or if you're building the concept of the course, start with 10 minutes, pull out a sheet of paper and write, keep in mind that you don't have to have a specific prompt. Or you can you can create a few questions to springboard firm or one question to springboard from that I would keep it simple and straightforward to start off with. If you get stuck just right, I don't know what to write over and over until something else comes to you. This keeps your ideas flowing.

Now that may sound strange, but writing I don't know what to write actually keeps that flow going so that you don't get stopped and stuck and frozen. And so once you write that two or three times, hopefully another idea comes to you and then you can just go back into that zone and keep the process going. That keeps the ideas flowing. And that's the idea. consider doing free riding as a daily practice to build general Writing Skills and generate material. Now I can't express how amazing free writing is for helping you to build material and to have a daily writing practice.

If you want to become better at writing, doing research, looking at books, practicing exercises, and keep in mind that you can do free writing when you're practicing exercises, and following techniques from books, those are all great ideas. But free writing is a great way to just get material for your writing to be able to have daily practice and things will come out that you don't expect that might create a story, a creative nonfiction piece, a blog post a conversation with someone a new course idea that you didn't even plan. That's the wonderful thing about that creative, unconscious mind that you're contacting. And so it's a great way to build writing skills. The more you do it, the better you get, as you gain more experience, increase your time. So for example, if you You start with 10 minutes a day for a week or two, then go to 20.

If you can afford that time, and then maybe go to 30, I knew people that will free right for an hour or an hour and a half. That is pretty long. But there are people that do that. So it just depends on where you're at what you need to do. Play with it and see what works for you. But keep in mind that free riding is like playing a sport or playing a musical instrument.

Most of us have done that at some point. When you start off, for example, jogging, you suck. I mean, it sounds kind of harsh, but none of us are really good at something when we start off unless we're a prodigy, and I suck at things when I first start out at them too. But we learned it's like tying our shoes or walking or bathing ourselves or feeding ourselves. Most able bodied adults had to start off not knowing how to do those things and we know how to do those things. Now that's very obvious.

So any other skill can be learned in the same way. Start off breathless and it's awesome. chord and it's weird. And then the more you do it, the more it becomes ingrained habit. And so that's exactly what writing is. A lot of people have this misconception that writing is this Oh, kind of magical thing that you pull out of the sky, or you're inspired by God or the powers that be, or you have this powerful, innate talent.

But writing is a skill that you can learn just like any other thing. And so free writing is a great way to be able to start doing that. And if you're intimidated by the course creation process, this is also a great way to help you get going on ideas on your course concepts and on your course plans. And in future lectures, we will talk more about how to use some of these techniques to help you get ideas for your course to help you organize them and to help you to plan your course concept overall to make sure that it's going to benefit yourself, but also your students which is really important. And so an example of free riding We have a certain example in listing and we're going to keep referring to the same prompt over and over just to kind of keep some consistency in the process.

So based on the same prompt that will come up and listing, writing the essay on a controversial social topic here is a short sample of free writing from the listing topics. Now, I'm not asking you to do this. But just for a scenario, since there are so many different possibilities on how you can use free writing. Let's just take a college essay for an example. Let's pretend like we have a first year college student, or maybe a second year college student. And they're being asked to write a controversial social issue argument, essay.

And so here's a short sample of what they might sit down and first free write their writing what they know they're just considering potential topics. And maybe they have an idea of a topic. And so this is where they begin. Here's a short excerpt of the free writing. I won't go through all of these But maybe they've done some basic research. And they're interested in writing a paper on cutting carbon emissions and fossil fuels internationally, and how international cooperation can help promote a cleaner environment.

And so I'll just let you read this passage, I won't read it to you. And then you can pause the computer if needed, and then we can move on. Okay, so that's just a passage an excerpt, it would be a lot longer than that even running for 10 minutes for 10 minutes, you should be able to get a good page, maybe a page and a half. There's not a required amount, but I'm just giving you an idea of how much you might include in a free ride. Now, that's simply the ideas that come to someone who might write what they get out of their head and what they know on the topic to help them get started on the argument. Is this a final product new, obviously not if someone turned that in as he as they would probably get a very low mark on their essay.

And so you might find Something that you like in the piece, something that has energy, something that stands out. So once you get done with your free writing, what do you do with it? Well, first you have to ask yourself, what are my goals? Why am I doing this and you should already know those things. And so once you have a free write, step back and see what stands out, what has the energy, what shows potential, you may have a rough rough paragraph or two for a draft, and you may find that you just have a senator to that stands out. And what you could do is pull that passage or those couple of sentences out and free write further to get more ideas that will help lead to more ideas for any kind of writing piece.

It will help you get more ideas on a course concept. It will help you get more ideas for a blog, a scientific paper, a college essay, a novel. So once you step back, look at what you have, see what stands out, pull that out, and either use that to continue free riding or to start springboarding into your actual project. So that is pretty Writing and I will include the rules of writing practice in a separate document in the course so that you can access it anytime that you want. That is free writing and that is the end of the first major brainstorming technique and I will see you in the next one