Writing a story or an analysis essay can feel very difficult. You look at a blank screen or a blank page and feel the ticking of the clock.
You feel stuck.
Writing can feel very intimidating and no matter how much you have thought about what you want to write, or how much you have revised, your fear can be immobilising!
However, I have a great tip that works. It really helps you clear away the paralysis around starting to write. It’s tried and tested!
If you are a year 6 student, a GCSE , GCE or Undergraduate, it will help you.
Here we go.
- Take a breath AND….set a timer for ONE MINUTE….THEN …..
- ALLOW YOUR SELF TO WRITE BADLY.
- WRITE A RUBBISH OPENING OR FIRST PARAGRAPH.
- SPEW IT OUT.
- JUST WRITE ANYTHING THAT COMES TO MIND.
- WRITE RUBBISH…..LET YOUR PEN GO ON ITS OWN MERRY WAY….!!!!
Writing rubbish takes away the pressure of trying to be GOOD!
Let me show you an example and see how easy and helpful rubbish writing can be!
Imagine you have been asked to write a story about a foggy scene. Here’s a foggy scene for you.
What comes to mind in ONE minute?
Blurry outlines. Sun hidden. Forgotten place. Church hidden by swirling smoky fog. Not sure where I am. Towers reaching for the sky. Water and sky together. Reflection. Mad painting. Light and darkness at war. Fighting over the buildings. Wanting to swallow them up. I am a painter man who likes beauty but not for my audience. I have given up on giving them what they think they see. I want to get them lost again. A return to the innocence of a child. Squinting because it makes the world different. Like magic for pigeons who perhaps the only creatures who can negotiate this shrouded world…a pigeon meets a lonely artist and a girl who lives by her wits rowing visitors across the water. She is called Amy and the pigeon, The Gray one.’ The artist goes by the name of Henry Withnot. He has lost touch with the fellow creatures of the city and the fog and the rowing boat and the pigeon come together to create a dramatic story of risk and enchantment. Who will find what they secretly hope for?
Now you have sent your nagging ‘monkey mind’ packing…let’s look at what has been released and see if there is anything you want to take up? It really doesn’t matter if you do find a word or phrase or idea..the important thing is that you have released the pressure about writing BY WRITING!
If you try ONE more minute and then maybe ONE more minute you may find you have THREE ideas worth considering. Writing FREELY allows your writing to experiment and try out ideas and words….
Let’s have another example, this time an analysis question from a GCSE text, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. :
The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness. There was something strange in my sensations, something indescribably new and, from its very novelty, incredibly sweet. I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a mill-race in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul. I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine. I stretched out my hands, exulting in the freshness of these sensations; and in the act, I was suddenly aware that I had lost in stature.
Read the extract, then turn on your ONE minute timer….so here’s my first effort at rubbish…
Like being ill. Recovery? Strange though.Rebirth? Released into new thing. Lists. Crowded. ‘Sensual’ an important idea. ‘Wicked’ jumps out. ‘Hands’ why stretch? Reaching? Examining? Freshness has shrunk him. Why? Punctuation gives run on. Flow of horrible pleasure?Who is speaking and how do we know this for sure?
Now take a breath and set your one minute timer again. Change pens too. It reminds your brainto be different.
Dr looking as himself as a specimen or species. The colon acts like a dam, before the flow of lurid details. ‘Come to myself’ looming idea. ‘Sickness’ has he been ill? Or is his wellness illness?
Variety of language. ‘Incredibly sweet.’ Maze of ideas.
Finally, try the one minute timer once more. Change pens again.
Waking up. Revival. Resurrection. Like CPR! Falling in love even? ‘I knew myself’ makes sound necessary and outcome of reflection. Can this be wholly bad, then? Delighted, so simile ‘like wine’ reminds me of Utterson. He denies himself ‘vint ages’ on first page. What does this say about respectability? How far is Utterson and other ‘gentlemen’ from Hyde? Is repression our only protection from our secret other souls?
Idea of ‘stature’ seems metaphorical way of suggesting fallen nature.
Now, in just THREE minutes, I have managed to write out spontaneous, uncensored ideas which enable me to think differently about my analysis. Allowing myself to just write ‘rubbish’ ironically liberates me from anxious ‘thinking’ which suffocates my writing. Relaxed thinking empowers you.
Surely, in the ideas ‘spewed out’ above, I can find THREE governing ideas for one analysis?
Ironically, writing with a timer, really boosts your imagination.
Your manancles fall off. Rubbish writing gets rid of writer’s block.
Try it.
Love it! Exhilarating and inspiring, this surely is Good Advice!! x
Paul and Tom