Near the beginning of the pandemic, 27 Powers' WILD WRITING came across our Facebook feeds. Laurie Wagner offered a free series of Wild Writing prompts, one per day for several weeks. Her goal was to help us through the "dark days" of sheltering at home.

 

She created a video each morning, read us a poem for some "jumping off" ideas, and then gave us these basic instructions...

1. Sit yourself in a comfortable space for writing - no distractions if you can.

2. Set your timer for 15 minutes.

3. Write as fast as you can, pen never leaving the page. Write badly.

"By writing quickly we are able to push past our inner critic and our ego and all the ways we stay trapped in looking good. This gives us a chance to move into a less self-conscious, loose groove where, if we’re lucky we may stumble into the fertile imagination that lingers within us, conjuring up stories and memories that are waiting to be written."

Laurie Wagner https://27powers.org/wild-writing-virtual/

 

All 4 of us fell in love with this practice.

 

In 2022, we decided to collectively provide our own prompts. Every Sunday, one of us (in a rotating order) would send a writing prompt that we found somewhere to our What'sApp space and we each used the Wild Writing practice to write from the prompt. None of us has been perfect in the practice. Life is busy. Sometimes we fall behind - and then we take an afternoon and we catch back up. Sometimes we check in with each other to help us keep on track. Ideally we carve out time every Sunday to write. It is only 15 minutes.

 

Where did we write, you ask? Brilliant question. We found our yearly planners/journals didn't have the space we needed so we wrote elsewhere. There are 52 Sundays in a year, so 52 writings to do. There are options - you can write on loose paper, you can type on your computer, you can write in a lined-paper notebook devoted specifically to this. For me, personally, I write 2-3 pages in the 15 minutes in a 8'x6' notebook. I have a bunch of the same kind - soft cover, 30 pages. As I complete one, I start the next. I am on "Volume 4". Dollar stores tend to have a lovely selection of writing pads and notebooks. It really doesn't matter where you write, but THAT you write.

 

For 2024, we are going to share our prompts with you for the second year in a row. This year they have a theme. They will come out each Sunday morning as a blog post. Make it part of your routine to check each Sunday and do your writing. You can do it as a group and share with each other, you can do it individually. We don't often share our writings - they can be very personal and "written badly", but sometimes we do. It's always optional.

 

It's simple. Read our prompt found in the 4WW BLOG tab of our website every Sunday. Set your timer, set up whatever you are going to be writing on, and write as fast as you can, as badly as you can for 15 minutes. Don't stop. You might be surprised at where you pen takes you.