I have a very good friend in the Philippines I’ve known since the early 2000s. We met on MySpace in a St. Elmo’s Fire group (okay, I know…) and have been close ever since, though we’ve never met in person. Most of our friendship has consisted of writing silly notes to each other, swapping stories about careers, relationships, food, and life. All the essentials of a friendship, right?
Early this morning she became the target of one of my oldest and most vital creative habits. Without focus, without planning, and honestly without much clarity, I just started writing. She received paragraph after paragraph of disconnected ideas and random thoughts. Whatever I felt for a second or two, I put on the page. I wanted to express myself, and at that hour she was the person I chose to send it to. It was a lot of fun. I do hope we’re still friends.
The Creative Water Hose
I return often to stream-of-consciousness writing in my creative life. This kind of writing doesn’t aim to be polished or edited. Most of the time, it isn’t even “good.” But that doesn’t matter. What matters is flow. Like opening a spigot and letting water blast through a garden hose, the goal is to get the words moving. You don’t even need another person at the end of your creative water hose. But of course, it’s more fun if there is.
When I write without censoring, it feels like opening a garden hose that hasn’t run in a while. At first, what comes out doesn’t look clean: a sputter, a blast of air, maybe even some rust. But if I let it run, the water clears and flows freely.
Words work the same way. My first sentences sputter with rust and debris. My thoughts scatter. Doubt creeps in. But if I keep the “hose” running full blast, the words clear up. The flow steadies. Eventually, the good ideas rush through.
Why It Works
This practice works because it shifts the focus away from outcome and places it on movement. When I allow myself to write badly, strangely, or incoherently, I remind myself that the page doesn’t need to be a stage. It can be a playground. And once I stop worrying about judgment, surprising connections show up. Thoughts I didn’t even know I carried suddenly spill out.
Julia Cameron, in her classic The Artist’s Way, calls this exercise “morning pages”— three longhand pages of anything and everything, written first thing each day. She frames it as a way to clear mental clutter so creativity doesn’t get stuck behind all the errands, worries, and noise of daily life.
What I describe here is a close cousin of her idea. It doesn’t always happen in the morning, and it doesn’t always fill three pages. But the intention stays the same: let the hose run until the water clears.
How to Begin
The simplest way to begin is to just start. Start before coffee. Start before deciding what’s worth writing. Start before asking whether anyone will read it.
For me, late night often works best. I’m a little tired and my brain is slightly fried, so the inner editor is easier to bypass. Early mornings work too. My mental capacities are still wobbly and I’ve just spent a few hours creating dream scenarios in my head. Those in-between states help loosen the grip of perfection.
Grab a notebook or open a blank document and give yourself permission to spill words without punctuation, without structure, without pressure to make sense. Five minutes clears the rust. Ten minutes often delivers clarity I didn’t expect. And if all you have is thirty seconds, even that can shake something loose.
Where It Leads
Over time, this habit leads somewhere. Not every session produces brilliance. Most sessions don’t, and they shouldn’t. But the act itself builds trust. It trains the creative muscle to move without a plan. And when inspiration does hit, you’ll already feel limber, warmed up, and ready for motion.
Sometimes I send the flow to a trusted friend, like this morning. Other times I keep it in my private notebooks, never intending anyone else to read it. Either way, the result feels the same: I walk away lighter, clearer, and closer to the part of myself that wants to create. And if my friend in the Philippines can put up with a few pages of nonsense now and then, maybe that’s proof enough that this strange little practice works.
