How and why 'streams of consciousness' are a useful practice for developing your creativity

So, streams of consciousness.

When I was 14 or 15 there were two events that really significantly changed and developed my creative practices.

One of them was reading The Artists Way (which is quite a famous book and I still think of it as being a bit naff but I can't deny that the exercises that I did, did help).

One of them was 'morning pages' which is... you wake up each morning and write three pages of everything that is going through your thoughts. So, "oh shit not this again I don't have time for this..." and just write everything, keep writing continuously for 3 pages, for eight weeks. It really frees you up to stop you from self-censoring and to help you get things 'out'... and I think it probably serves a similar function to Mindfulness to be honest. 

Doing that, I think, is responsible for unleashing the ability to write stream of consciousness poetry.

So I had been creative writing for some time even that age, but ever since I was about 15 I have written poems that don't have any pre-thought to them. It just starts with a word that pops into my head, or a phrase that just has that quality of inspiration.

And I write it, I don't know what's going to come after the first five words, it just flows, I'm not thinking about it.

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