Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach

My first university-level creative writing course used as the main text a book that, at that time, was a brand-new release: Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg. After moving through the exercises in that book, I felt transformed. Goldberg introduced a simple concept that I’d never heard of. It’s commonplace today, a part of the lexicon of most creative writers. Freewriting. The Life-Changing Magic of Freewriting The practice of freewriting unleashed in me the memories, stories, images, and ideas that I hadn’t yet reached when I sat down to write using conventional approaches of the time. I'd been making notes and lists, thinking and outlining, then trying to write into an outline. I was taught that approach, and it seemed sensible and efficient. My work, however, was clunky, uninspired, unremarkable. Goldberg’s invitation to freewrite—to set a timer for, say, ten minutes and write, pen to paper, without stopping—gave me a way to shimmy past my stifling editor-mind to what Goldberg calls “first tho