A Personal Experience of Left Handed Writing

I just read Lucia Cappachione's second edition of The Creative Journal and I realize that structured exercises are not where it's at for the writer.  Rather,  it's important to allow the flow.  As a method to explore the self, left handed writing as per Lucia Cappachione is a valuable tool.  The self is needed to write, but as I write here I see that what's coming down on paper could as well come from my right hand.  I think this has happened because I used to use left handed writing a lot.  I can see that my mind is ahead of my hand.  So in that way I'm functioning in the way Peter Elbow says some experienced writers often do once they've been writing for quite a while.

Perhaps as you've been reading this, you may notice a difference from my typical bogs.  I'm now writing with my right hand again.  I "feel" the difference, and experience it as subtle.  And, I did learn something new even though my mind skipped ahead.  New insights are the essence of left handed writing.  While much slower than right handed writing, at times using this approach can produce a useful nugget, e.g., structured exercises cannot be the core of freewriting.  Structure contradicts freedom (as in freewriting).

So, even though it may "feel" boring to freewrite, still free writing is a rich resource for the writer and wannabe writer whether done with the left hand or the right hand or even with both hands on the computer.