Welcome to the Write 'em Cowgirls NaNoWriMo Free Special Offer

If you want to be a stronger, surer writer for next year's National Novel Writing Month, regular (or even irregular) freewriting practice can do more than almost anything else to get you there. Freewriting is a process that can empower your creativity, make your voice strong and authentic, increase your confidence, give you new ideas, help you work out sticky plot or character problems, and more.

It's all about process. You take your idea or prompt, set a timer (go at least fifteen minutes with these prompts), and write the first thing that pops into your head (even if that first thing is "duh" or "I hate this prompt" or "what the heck do I do with this?"). Then you keep writing without stopping (even if some of what you write is "I don't know what to write next"). You can't go wrong, because the whole point is to write whatever comes into your head and out your hands after that first thought. You can achieve incredible states of relaxed intensity as you learn to trust the process and jump write in. There are no bad freewrites, because the whole point is to let go and splash whatever words you want onto the page without any judgments or criticism. Fictions, nonfictions, poetry, and fusions of every description are all fair game. Anything goes in a freewrite and you don't even have to stick to the prompt if the write takes a turn.

You can learn more about freewriting and find more ideas for freewriting prompts on my Freewriting Pages. The twenty-four freewriting prompts on this free printable pdf are all write-about style prompts. You read the words of the prompt, then start to write about whatever the prompt brings to mind and keep going. Like all of Sharon's Deluxe Take-a-Write Prompts, these are formatted with dotted lines so you can cut them out, giving you two dozen handy little prompt cards to stuff into a jar or envelope, all ready to pull out when it's time to take a write on the wild and free side.

I made this sheet as a special gift for all 2009 NaNo participants, and credit the plot doctoring forum for inspiration for some of the prompts. Even if you didn't win, if you wrote any words at all you did a very cool thing, and maybe if you start freewriting now and keep it up until next time around you will cross that finish line in 2010. So help yourself to this free printable pdf, NaNoWriteabouts_1, compliments of Sharon Cousins and the Write 'em Cowgirls website, a NaNo-friendly resource. If you find you really enjoy working with these types of prompts, check out the full line of Sharon's Deluxe Take-a-Write Prompts.

If you did not participate in NaNoWriMo but have found your way here and you would like to download these prompts, the way to do it in good karma and with my blessing is to donate a couple of bucks to NaNoWriMo and the Young Writers Program, and then feel free to download.

Good luck and write on!