You wrote for a few minutes without stopping, and now a messy paragraph is in front of you. Some of it repeats. Some of it wanders. What do you do with it next?
This page follows one freewriting example from start to finish: a rough first pass, three lines that could each lead somewhere, the reason for choosing one, and the second pass that grows from it. You can try the same choice on a rough page of your own without fixing it first.
Where this step comes from
Freewriting is writing for a set time without stopping to correct what you've written. The University of Rochester's looped freewrite activity, adapted from Peter Elbow, adds a next step: after the timed pass, highlight key phrases or surprising ideas and use them to start a second freewrite. The University of Southampton's freewriting guide calls the rereading step sifting: you look for anything promising, even a small phrase.
Our guide to starting writing ends its short freewrite with the same suggestion in one sentence: find a line you want to understand better and keep writing. This page slows that step down and shows it in full.
The first pass: a fictional example
Both passes on this page are fictional teaching examples constructed for this article. They are not a transcript of a real timed session, and they are not a standard for how your pages should look. Here is the first pass:
I was going to write about clearing the shelf but I am looking at the postcard again. Again because I moved it yesterday and put it straight back. The picture is a ferry. I don't remember the ferry being blue, perhaps that was another one. There is a price sticker on the back, no, there was a sticker and now there is a pale square. I keep saying shelf when what I mean is the things on it. The postcard leans because the bottom corner has gone soft. I could put it in a book. Then I wouldn't see the corner. I don't know what that has to do with clearing anything. The shelf can wait. I remember trying to write the address on that card while the table moved.
'Again because I moved it yesterday' picks up the last word of the sentence before and never becomes a full sentence. The clause 'perhaps that was another one' admits a gap in memory. With 'no, there was a sticker', the sentence corrects itself halfway through instead of going back. The page drifts from the shelf to the postcard to a table somewhere else. None of this needs repair before you choose what to follow.
If you don't have a rough page yet, start one. If a timer helps, try five minutes for this pass. You can also stop sooner.
Begin with something you can see from where you are sitting. Write whatever follows it, including a repetition or a change of subject. For this pass, leave earlier sentences alone. If a word will not come, use a placeholder and continue. You can stop after a few minutes or leave the page unfinished. Write
Three lines that could lead somewhere
Reread the page and look for words you want to stay with. Three lines in this example could each start a new pass:
- 'I keep saying shelf when what I mean is the things on it.' This could become a list of the objects on the shelf, one at a time.
- 'The postcard leans because the bottom corner has gone soft.' This could become a close description of the card as it is now.
- 'I remember trying to write the address on that card while the table moved.' This could become a remembered action from the day the card was written.
None of them is the correct choice. One useful test is whether you know more about a line than the page says. The writer picks the moving table because they can still recall how awkward it was to write on it, and they want to stay in that moment. That is a reason for today, not a rule. On another day, the same writer might list what is on the shelf.
The second pass: a fictional example
The writer begins the new pass with the chosen line's last words, 'the table moved', and does not edit the first pass. This second pass is also fictional, written for this article:
The table moved when people walked past. Or maybe my chair was touching it, I'm not sure. I held the card flat with two fingers but the pen kept making little hooks. The first line of the address slanted up toward the stamp. I moved the cup out of the way and it spilled anyway, only into the saucer. The cup was the heavy white kind. I remember the tea in the saucer better than whatever I wrote about the trip, which was probably the weather. The last line was easier because everyone had sat down again.
Look at what carried over. The card, the address, and 'the table moved' all come from the last line of the first pass. The shelf, the price sticker, and the ferry's color stay behind on the first page.
Almost everything else is new: the pen 'making little hooks', the address that 'slanted up toward the stamp', the cup and saucer, and the people who walked past and then sat down. They arrived while the writer stayed with one physical problem: writing on a table that would not keep still.
The second pass is still rough. 'Or maybe my chair was touching it, I'm not sure' leaves the cause open. 'The cup was the heavy white kind' is a detail that leads nowhere. The phrase 'probably the weather' is a guess. The pass ends on an ordinary action, not a lesson. It goes further into one part of the first pass, but it is not better writing, and another line might give you less.
Bring a word, phrase, or question from a rough page that you want to stay with. Begin a new pass from that fragment. Describe one thing it makes you remember or wonder about. Leave the earlier words as they are. If no fragment interests you, begin somewhere else. Write
Opening a Write link in Eternal doesn't erase anything already on your page. If your first pass is there, it stays, and you can begin the second pass below it. If that page shows a different prompt, Eternal asks before switching.
When no line pulls you forward
The University of North Carolina Writing Center's brainstorming guide expects a lot of filler in any freewrite and allows that a reread may turn up nothing worth keeping. So a page with no line worth following is ordinary. Suppose the writer of the postcard pass rereads it and wants none of the three lines. They leave the page unchanged and close it. Another day, they begin somewhere else: a sound they can hear at that moment, or a different object in the room. They owe the old page neither a second pass nor a conclusion.
If you would rather read complete private entries than a working page, the journal writing examples show three, with notes on how each one ends.