Flow Into Writing: Discover the Joy of Your Writing Voice

Wondering how to find your writer's voice and never face writer's block again? Dr. Gwyn Erwin's Flow Writing method is a simple, daily free-writing practice designed to help writers at every level tap into their creativity, generate unlimited ideas,  and overcome writer's block, one prompt word at a time.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDov2T6ucqQ

Focus on Flow Into Writing

I'm so happy to be with you today, and what I want to focus on is flowing into writing. Many, many people, millions, want to write. Some are dreamers, some are beginners, some are advanced, some are experts. And many are published, but this video is for those of you who are just beginning to realize your dream and taking the chance of putting it into practice, or even if you're a seasoned writer, if you're stuck in some way with your writing.

I've developed a practice called Flow Writing. I am sure there are other people who know how to do this, either intuitively or from their own experience, but I've guided myself as a writer and many, many others to create beautiful works from a very simple, focused practice.

So let me tell you how it works.

How Flow Writing Works

You take a prompt word or a phrase. You write it on the top of a piece of paper or on a document on your computer (but I recommend hand to paper and pen best) and then you flow right from that prompt.

Now, what does flow right mean?

As a psychoanalyst, I work with associations all the time with patients and with myself in my work with them.

Flow writing is a free associative process. Basically, what you're going to do is to just write from that prompt word or phrase, like taking dictation from your mind. You're not going to think about it, you're certainly not going to be editing it. You're going to simply follow where your mind goes.

And you do that without stopping, without thinking, but just writing for at least 30 minutes.

Now in this process, at some point you may be surprised by what is revealed in front of you on the page, and then you say, "Hmm, what about that?" And then follow that trail. So your mind is like a bunny, and you're following the bunny through the trails of writing in your own personal creative forest.

No judgements, no critiques, no editing, just pure flow writing, and you go from one idea to the other, taking dictation from your mind. Now, what does this do? If you engaged in this process and made a commitment and could fulfill it pretty faithfully for months or a year, you would be amazed at what you discover.

What You'll Find With Flow Writing

You're going to find your mind. You're going to find your writer's mind and your writer's voice. You are going to start noticing patterns of interest and where your mind travels as you're writing. You're also going to develop how many countless ideas to build on in your writing, and you will never suffer from writer's block again.

If you use this method. and I've used it with hundreds of writing clients that I've had and students over decades, and I even work it into my therapy with my patients because it's a great, therapeutic tool for in between sessions or at the end of sessions. And I use it myself as well.

Let me tell you a story....

Several years ago, I was teaching a writing group of analysts who were also professional published writers in Los Angeles, and I never brought my own work into any of the groups that I teach, unless somebody would request that for a specific reason, and then I'd really consider it seriously. But I would have reservations because this is about their work, not mine.

However, on this particular day, somebody was kind of very bemoaning the idea that they didn't think their ideas were original and that they were worried that what they would write has already been written about tens of thousands of times. And I said, that's true. Probably has, but you haven't written it. You haven't written about this topic from your voice, from your perspective, from your point of view.

I gave them an exercise and I said, "I'm going to give you a topic and I want each of you to write about this topic. And in our next session we're going to share what we've written and you will find how different every one of our expressions was of that particular topic.

In a chorus, they said, "Will you do it too?"

And I said, "Yes, I will."

So I went home. We each had the prompt and I went from the prompt and I did it as a flow writing exercise, which, you know, I taught them and they knew about, and it took me less than an hour, 45 minutes or so, and I had a finished piece and I was thrilled with it.

It was full of surprises for me, even as a writer, even as I kind of knew what the topic was, I was thrilled with how it flowed and the ways, the directions that it went in. Anyway, I did a slight editing.

 I mean, I've been a writer since I was 14 years old, so I write pretty well from the get go. And then I do a series of drafts. In this case I only did one more draft and cleaned it up and edited it in certain ways.

At our next meeting, we each read our pieces and they were really terrific and every one of them worth publishing.

Then I read mine and. I feel kind of shy saying this, but they were sort of blown away by it, and said, "Are you going to submit this somewhere?

I replied, "Gee, I don't know, maybe."

A week or so later, I dared myself, because I can get shy about certain things, to submit it to an analytic journal.

Now, usually when you submit an article or an essay to a journal, you could wait four to six months to hear back. And then it's another four to six to 12 months before it's published. I submitted this to this particular publication on a Saturday, Sunday, one of those two days over the weekend. And Monday morning I got an email back saying, we absolutely love this piece, and we want to publish it this fall (this was in springtime, I think) .

I was blown away. So of course, I said yes. I was thrilled.

Two days later they emailed me and said, "You know what? We love it so much, we're going to publish it in the spring version instead of waiting till the fall."

It came out to a wonderful response, so that was a great experience. It was a great experience in flow writing. It was a great experience in taking my own dare to send it out, and it was a great experience to get it published, so I encourage you to start flow writing every day as much as you can. I know life is hectic and life is busy, and you may not always be able to do it, but you can put in regularity at least a half an hour every day from a prompt word.

How To Find Prompt Word for Flow Writing

Now, where do you get the prompt words? You could look around. Look around the outside of your house, look around in your home, see something that's pleasing to you or something you really don't like, and that's your prompt word. Ugly lamp, hummingbirds, squirrels. Doesn't matter.

To help you along I have created different products for flow writing. One is a set of cards called Flow Writing, and it's divided into four seasons of the year. There is one prompt word for every day divided into weeks. So each card has seven prompt words. There are 52 cards, like a deck of cards in a little plastic case, and you can take the card out, slip it in your purse or your pocket, and have it with you.They're seasonal and they kind of build on one another.

👉 Get your Therapeutic Flow Write Cards here

Now I also created what's called the Therapeutic Flow Write Card deck. And similarly it's divided into four categories, not seasons, but four categories, seven words on a card for each week of the year. And it is to support therapeutic work for either the therapist or the patient who are engaged in it. Those are for sale on my website, in my shop.

👉 Discover the Therapeutic Flow Write Card Deck here

As well, I created journals so that you can buy an annual journal of each of those, the Flow Writing Journal or the Flow Write Therapeutic Journal, and they're also for sale in the Four Seasons for flow writing or the four categories under therapeutic flow writing.

👉 Learn more about the Flow Writing Journals here

My Hope For You With Flow Writing...

I hope you get started. I think you will love doing this.

I think you will be surprised, thrilled.

You might be frustrated. Then write about the frustration!

As well, I have two online writing courses: "Designing Your Non-Fiction Book", and "Designing Your Fiction Work", and I will have another course coming out in the late spring/early summer of 2026, "Drafting Your Writing To Publication."

Flow writing is an essential launch to all of these processes, so I hope you'll check them out.

I love being with you, and I'll see you very soon. Bye for now.