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Free Writing 1


I have decided to share my first attempt at free writing. Here it is: 


Free writing is quite hard I have decided while I sit here writing my free writing or whatever you want to call it. Spewing ideas in a frenzy onto a piece of paper: your thoughts, feelings and anything else that comes to mind. The act of writing itself is not too easy either - you think in sounds that you then translate to written just for the person who is reading it to translate back into sounds either aloud or in their own head. Odd but true. I guess that's why audiobooks are so popular in our busy society. That and the convenience of being able to read and do whatever you need to do. Your demanding lists, tasks, problems to solve.


That was an example of asyndetic listing - the problems of primarily analysing writing is that you analyse your own and find it never to be good enough to publish; to even show anyone. This is where free writing comes in a splurge of ideas although all I seem to be writing about is writing itself. There are, however, some ideas I could research, such as why has there been such a rise in audiobooks, why do you think in sounds, write in words then translate back into sounds rather than keeping it as words itself and what exactly is the name of the thing I am doing. All could make good articles apart from the latter so maybe this is doing some good although it seems pretty useless. 


Writing for writing's sake. Usually when people write they are compelled to tell a story, to give a message to a wider audience but this is more for me (a message to myself from myself). There is no storyline or protagonist. Just me. There is no intention of anyone else ever reading this and that's what makes it so powerful. 


Power is having the reader lingering page after page. True power is having them fully understand the message you are giving and them try change themselves or others due to it. That would be every writer's dream. From George Orwell in his book '1984' preventing extremism - which he believed to be circular either extremism, far right or far left, has those with the power and wealth and those without - to Cecilia Ahern and her book 'Roar' empowering women and telling their stories so eventually they won't occur to anyone else. These books all convey a message which readers react to either proactively, or as most people tend to do in our modern society so sadly, reactively. 


The fact people are less proactive and more reactive has been studied - I know that for a fact but would need to do more research to make an article from it. Things like the bystander effect prove this. I am not sure what disproves it but I could again do some more research. 


The problem with research is little writing gets done for the hours of research done. Writing is the daunting part and it takes less time which is the odd part unless you're a perfectionist which I guess most people are. There is a famous quote about writers leaving their work unfinished as they will never finish it otherwise. It is "A work is never completed, but merely abandoned". I feel this is the way I have always written and always will. The question with me at least is is: is it abandoned for no one to see or is it abandoned for everyone to see. 


The thing about writing, unlike many other things that needs good practice as practice makes permanent, is the more you do it the better you become even if it is so called bad practice because that just becomes your style of writing. Your way of making your writing stand out to everyone else's. I am not entirely sure if this free writing is good or bad practice. It is definitely not good for my choice of words but as George Orwell once said (in his list of advice for writers), "Never use a long word where a short one will do". 


Long words baffle me sometimes. I read a book recently where on the first page it began by talking about undulating. As a swimming teacher you'd think I was reading a book about swimming but no. It was about the fields. Undulating. If I was an everyday reader would I possibly know what that word meant? Probably not. I should probably one day do a review for 'The Great Summer Sewing Bee' but I need to get past that first paragraph. Someone obviously hasn't read George Orwell as much as me and in case it isn't entirely obvious that someone is Alex Brown. Maybe their work isn't yet complete and is merely abandoned however and as a writer myself should I really judge but as an analyst I say of course I should. 



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