30-Day Writing Challenge: Day 1

 

Exercise 1: Write in stream of consciousness for 10 minutes without stopping.

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My first task for the 30-day writing challenge, I’m using the book by Sara E. Crawford, is to write in stream of consciousness for 10 minutes. I am attempting this on my phone. It is outside of my comfort zone, but that is the right mindset for this. Or should I say, the write mindset? 

My first thought was applying this exercise to my classes. Write without stopping for 10 minutes. Easy, right? Well, it’s easy if you are or identify yourself as a writer. (And the mere fact that you even contemplate doing this yourself tells me that you enjoy writing.) 

But then I think about one of my earliest students, Miguel, who came into my 10th grade class on the first day and said flatly, “I don’t read,” and on Day 2 followed that with, “I don’t write either.” For students like Miguel, asking them to write nonstop for 10 minutes is like asking them to hold their breath for 10 minutes. 

(I thought that task impossible, but the Guinness Book of World Records says the limit is 24 minutes, 37 seconds.)

So it IS possible. I’d have to look up HOW you learn to hold your breath for nearly a half hour - voluntarily, but I’m guessing that it comes from training in technique and practice. So if it’s possible to resist breathing, one of the strongest and most primal instincts, then it should also be possible to resist the fear and hesitancy of writing, which is definitely not an physical necessity like breathing. (Here, writers may disagree.) 

I’m also guessing that the main thing the world’s best “non-breather” did was have a desire for or mindset to develop that “talent.” So the key may be to break down the walls that prevent a student from writing and get them writing every day. That’s what I try to do with my students every year.

And as for Miguel? By the end of his sophomore year, he handed me something to read. It was a short story he had written on his own.

Okay, that was actually more than 11 minutes, but I am a writer AND I was allowing for the extra time needed to type with my thumbs instead of my fingers.