Freewriting and Rewriting

I love to freewrite and am always recommending the activity to the
writers I work with. Freewrite with a place, I’ll say, or a character, a mood, a story.
See what you turn up.
We often seem to feel that we should “know” what’s
going to happen next or that we should understand a complex character
in one swipe. Freewriting turns up all sorts of nuggets–that the mind
wouldn’t have come up with on its own, thinking. You don’t think your
way to some of these things–they emerge, kind of like dream images,
from a deep trove.