Paths to Wholeness discussion

Peter Elbow's Writing Without Teachers, which I first encountered in 1974, changed the way I thought about writing and freed me from one of my chief impediments: the idea that I had to work out in my head, or in an outline, what I wanted to say before I wrote anything down. By introducing the concept of freewriting, Elbow made it possible to start anywhere, and trust that the process of writing without a teacher, and without editing, would be sufficient to get core ideas down, which later editing and revising could polish into something that might never have come to be, using the method drilled into me in high school and college.

using the method drilled into me in high school and college

Funny--I volunteer as a mentor in a writing program for teenage girls, where I learned that "freewriting" is a staple of high school writing programs, a standard technique to get someone out of being stuck or writing too mechanically. And so it all goes back to Peter Elbow. I worked as a manuscript editor for Oxford University Press when it published that book. I didn't edit it, but my friend did. I remember her talking about it a lot.

Nice to know that, at least in this respect, techniques taught in high school have changed. And to see how these life threads come together.

I seem to remember that Gabrielle Rico published a book called "Writing the Natural Way" that taught freewriting exercises and "trial webs" to stimulate ideas. I think her book pre-dated Elbow's, and birthed much of the use of listing and balloon-like idea generation techniques.

You might want tocheck out her book, "Writing the Natural Way". Nice addition to my knowledge.

Thanks for the reference. Rico's book was 1983, Elbow's was 1974, but both were innovators. I'll add to the list when I have a chance. There were others whose books also shook up writing, in a good way.

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