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Main Steps in the Open-ended Writing Process |
| • | Write for fifteen or twenty minutes without stopping. Start with whatever comes first to mind or perhaps with some particular topic you've been wanting to write about. But make sure to let the writing go wherever it wants to go. | | • | Pause and find the center or focus or main point in what you wrote. Write it down in a sentence. | | • | Use that focusing sentence for a new burst of nonstop writing. Again, let the writing go wherever it wants to go. Invite yourself gradually or suddenly to lose sight of whatever you started with. | | • | Again, pause and focus and write down the focusing sentence. | | • | Keep up this alternating cycle till you get to the piece of writing that is in you that wants to get written. | | • | Find a way to write it: perhaps you already have; perhaps you need to start in with a fresh draft; perhaps you need to make an outline or plan before you start a draft. | | • | The open-ended writing process is most useful if you sense you have something to write but don't quite know what it is; and if you are willing to allow for time and chaos while it develops. |
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