Is This Cheating?

Soooo….I have a writing prompt and a Spotify playlist for your freewriting pleasure today.

Which kind of feels like cheating. But is it?

Because sometimes writing is sheer agony. And there's always the fear that no one's going to read it, right?

Especially as a writer, we're supposed to have these original genius thoughts, all the time. So a prompt and a playlist can feel like we're borrowing other people's creativity.

But I think we make things hard so we feel like we earned them.

What if we just... didn't?

See - freewriting can feel like cheating for a writer.

Because you're not supposed to think. You're meant to let go of the outcome.

You're making music without an agenda or an audience.

Which brings me to the Rumi poem I chose as our opening prompt for the Soul Writing Session last week.

It's called Be Your Note:

Remember the lips where wind-breath

originated, and let your note be clear.

Don’t try to end it.

Be your note.

I’ll show you how it’s enough.

Go up on the roof at night

In this city of the soul.

Let everyone climb on their roofs

and sing their notes. 

Sing loud!

Now you.

Grab a pen and notebook. Set a timer. Take a long, slow breath... choose a word or phrase from this poem.

And wriiiite. Without stopping. No punctuation, no grammar, no spelling woes.

Be your note. I’ll show you how it’s enough.

And here’s that Spotify playlist I mentioned so you can slip in your headphones and get into the zone.

I’d love to hear how it works for you. I’m still convinced this idea is so easy it’s cheating. 

Are there any great playlists you use for writing? Would you be up for getting prompts like this once a month(ish)...are you a prompt user or a lover of the brain dump?

Hit me up over email at jb@jenbaxter.com. I'd love to hear about your creative process.

Stay creative.