Unlocking the Mind – A Free Writing Practice

Originally written in 2012. Revised for Sianya.tv.

It’s a bank holiday morning in South East London. Grey in the way it often is, but not entirely flat. When I walked the dogs just before dawn, the air felt different. Not warm exactly, but changed. As if spring was thinking about turning up early and then reconsidering.

I’ve given myself twenty minutes to write. No plan. No outcome. Just the timer and whatever shows up.

Free writing doesn’t come naturally to me. My writing life has always been structured. Purposeful. A little too tidy, if I’m honest. Letting words arrive without directing them used to make me deeply uncomfortable. It still does, just less dramatically than it once did.

I remember the physical sensation of that discomfort from years ago. The tight chest. The low nausea. The strange vulnerability of putting words down when you don’t yet know what they’re for. I felt it most strongly when I started writing professionally, back in the mid-2000s. Even now, the memory of that feeling is sharp enough to touch.

Outside, children are playing in the street. The older dog is alert at the window, convinced something important is happening. The puppy is asleep, blissfully unaware. I’m watching the clock in the corner of the screen and hoping we make it to the end of the twenty minutes without chaos.

We do not.

The barking starts. The puppy wakes. There’s a stuffed toy being launched at my feet, which I understand is an invitation, not a suggestion. I make the quiet, soothing noises that parents everywhere seem to learn instinctively, trying not to raise my voice, trying not to fully engage. It doesn’t work. It never does.

There’s something comforting about this interruption. About writing in the middle of life rather than waiting for the perfect conditions. For years I believed I needed silence, space, clarity. A clean desk. A clean mind. What I’ve learned instead is that writing happens around the noise, not after it.

The timer is nearly done. The puppy is settled again. The older dog has decided the street is no longer a threat. The coffee is cold.

That will do.

I’ll stop here.

Originally written in 2012. Revised for Sianya.tv.