Freewriting: A second attempt

Back in March, I discovered the art of freewriting and fell in love. But unfortunately, I've done little of it (or any creative writing) since.

But today, I decided I wanted to have another go. I saw an image of a stunning landscape, full of water, mountains and rolling hills. I once again realised that images - especially scenery - can be a huge source of inspiration and we can all take the same picture and all have a different idea or story inspired from it.

I had planned to bulk write blog posts on writing tips but after seeing that image, I felt compelled to do some creative writing myself.

So I navigated my way to pexels and began my search for an image to use for my freewriting exercise.

I came across the following and going by the principles of freewriting, I chose this one as it was the first to resonate with me in some way. I felt a connection to it although in what way I couldn't say.

My ten minutes began. Ten minutes to just write. Anything. It doesn't have to be good, heck, it doesn't even have to be coherent. This is an exercise for generating ideas, not a master crafted piece of prose.

But I'm also on my lunch break at work, so distractions are present. It makes it that bit harder to break through the noise and stop listening to voices of doubt, convincing you that if you even dare to show the process, you'll be ridiculed.

So the first ten minutes is just to get words down. And this was my result:

Magic, fairies, children. Woods, forests and wonder. Little girl with long dark hair in a knee-length white dress.

Bare feet ruffled through the leaves, as delicate as a snowflake. Tinkling sounds echoed all around, mixed with childish giggles of playfulness and discovery. The butterfly wings glowered a vibrant blue, indicating that magic was still strong in the area. The mushrooms burned bright, showcasing healing was strong and available - that lightness was winning against the dark. When the light in the mushrooms burns out, the darkness wins.

And when the darkness wins, innocence dies. The playfulness and curiosity make way to suspicion and malice.

The above is all the words and images that come to mind so I got them down. Then I went away from it for ten minutes.

The second stage starts with going back through stage one and underlining any words or phrases that I like or would like to develop. The below are the words that I picked out:

Magic, children, woods, forests and wonder. Little girl with long dark hair in a knee-length white dress. Bare feet, giggles of playfulness and discovery. When the light burns out, the darkness wins.

Those are what spoke to me, what I wanted to explore and develop. Cue the next step of stage two; writing whatever comes to mind with these new words. And this was the result:

Bare feet brushed against the forest’s canvas, made up of fallen leaves and the embers of what once lived. The luminescent glow from the butterflies’ wings showered the neighbouring flora, giving everything a blue tint, including Kiera’s snow-white dress that clung at her legs as she ran.

A playful giggle escaped her lips as she veered around obstacles, trying to outpace her pursuer. Sky-high trees canopied high above her head, creating shadows which could lend themselves to the perfect hiding place if she could find a tree with big enough roots. He’d never find her, she’d finally win for once.

Again, it's not about getting a perfect paragraph, it's about generating ideas. And with the second stage, I can already see a scene playing out from here and have ideas of who I want the little girl Kiera to be, who she's playing with and the relevance of the blue hue of the butterflies. I didn't have those ideas to start with, I just felt a connection to the image.

From here, I should go back and rinse and repeat until I'm either bursting with ideas or have the one idea refined. But alas, I'm out of time for today.

Your turn :) Let me know how you get on.