The Writing ProcessWhatever Works

How to Start: Begin with no idea or form at all. Write about something you really care about. Complete an assignment, even if it is one you

make up yourself.

Write a sonnet, you gleeking, flap-mouthed giglet.

Freewriting: No Rules, No subject When freewriting, advises Peter Elbow

in Writing Without Teachers, "Never stop to look back, to cross something out, to wonder how to spell something, to wonder what word or thought to use, or to think about what you are doing." The only rule to follow in freewriting is simply not to stop writing.

Freewriting. What to write. Grocery store. Girl with the strawberry mole. First with father, now with mother. Fireworks in the park. Uncurious women. Evening. Cooler air. Couple sitting in their garden with their bare feet in a kiddie pool. Lawyer boyfriends know all about open container laws. Don't stop. Eight minutes to go? Don't stop. Packing suitcase. Bring the mini suitcase home from Canada. Shuttered houses. Still windmills. Half-shut cat eyes. Staying late in the office. Rain in Texas. Webs of fire ants floating down river. Great rivers. I don't know anything about Great Rivers, but we walked down to the creek the last year we lived in the dorms. 

Clustering: Visual organization

Turn off the Critic

Choosing a SubjectWrite what you read . . .

“[Y]ou may have learned about technique without having learned anything about the unique contribution you can make to such a story” (Burroway 33).

Write what you have lived . . .

“Some teachers and critics advise beginning writers to write what they know, but I find this misleading . . . producing a lot of dead grandmother stories and tales of dormitory life” (Burroway 33)

. . . but not too much.

. . . but don’t limit yourself.

Material from your life . . . The proper relationship of a writer to his or her own life is similar to a cook with a cupboard. What the cook makes from the cupboard is not the same thing as what’s in cupboard . . . ---Lorrie Moore

Story Starters The dilemma (“Lady and the Tiger”)

Story Starters: The incongruity(Pigs in the backyard of

the mansion)

Story Starter: Transplant The transplant (Give your real

feelings/situation to imaginary person)

Story Starters: Memory

A strange connection

Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy

Story Starters:

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contain seven letters.

Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.

Both of their wives lost their children while living in the White House.

Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.

When stuck . . . Keep going—no matter what!