How a Bestselling Author Drafts with Freewrite

July 08, 2025 | 3 min read

How does a USA Today bestselling author use Freewrite?

Chelsea Conradt takes us inside her writing process.

Every woman who has lived on this farm has died. Emily just moved in.

So begins the pitch for Texas writer Chelsea Conradt's adult thriller debut, The Farmhouse, which she wrote on her Freewrite Traveler.

Readers can rest assured the book is just as good as the pitch because The Farmhouse is now officially a USA Today bestseller!

We sat down with Chelsea to discuss her writing process and her publishing journey thus far.

ANNIE COSBY: What does your writing process look like?

CHELSEA CONRADT: I like to think of myself as a "tentpole" writer.

I come into a story knowing where we start, where we end, and a handful of pivotal moments in the book.

Then it's time to write and I discover how those key scenes connect while I'm drafting.

"I come into a story knowing where we start, where we end, and a handful of pivotal moments in the book."

AC: Interesting. I haven't heard that term before. So how does Freewrite factor into that process?

CC: Freewrite makes me so much faster! I like to draft on my Traveler in the mornings — often at a coffee shop.

I find that if I'm on my laptop in the morning, it's too easy to get pulled away. Email pings in. Social media is right there. But when I open the Freewrite and pop in my earbuds, it's just me and the words.

"Freewrite makes me so much faster!"

And so I jam on my Freewrite in the mornings. I don't edit at all as I go. Just words and story and flow state goodness.

Then I grab the document from Postbox in the afternoon, and bring it into Scrivener where I clean up my inevitable typos (there will always be "teh" in my first go) and edit what I worked on in the morning. This process lets me draft quickly, but also cleanly.

"I don't edit at all as I go. Just words and story and flow state goodness."

AC: What a cool hybrid approach to pantsing and plotting. Is Traveler your favorite Freewrite device?

CC: Yes. If anyone else writes on airplanes, Traveler fits beautifully in the main cabin seats. No scares of the person reclining and crushing your laptop.

Though, at some point, a flight attendant will ask, "What is that darling thing?" and you'll have to explain. So bring bookmarks to promote your book, because if they're asking about your writing, they're a potential reader!

"But when I open the Freewrite and pop in my earbuds, it's just me and the words."

AC: How long did it take you to write The Farmhouse?

CC: I had the idea for The Farmhouse in April 2023, and once I had it I couldn't stop writing. I quickly worked on an initial proposal for the book (about 60 pages and a very detailed synopsis) and shared it with my agent.

We quickly went out on submission, and after a few months of me being the most patient person ever (haha), editors started to read and offer. I accepted the offer for The Farmhouse from the wonderful team at Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks in December 2023.

The book was due April 1 of 2024. We edited over the summer of 2024, and The Farmhouse released on June 17, 2025!

AC: That's really fast, in publishing terms. How has your publishing journey been so far?

CC: I've been fortunate to have an editor who gets my goals for each book. So the experience has been lovely.

I was delighted to get to have interior art created for the book. We have art on the inside cover and character art on the first page. The first time I saw these drawings, my mind was blown. It was as if the artist, Simon Mendez, had plucked the images straight from my mind.

Both indie bookstores and Barnes & Noble have been supportive of The Farmhouse and enthusiastic to share and recommend. The horror and thriller communities are being kind to a crossover novel.

And on release day, I met a reader who told me The Farmhouse was the book they needed right now.

This journey has been a dream, and I'm thoroughly excited to keep writing new stories.

"And on release day, I met a reader who told me THE FARMHOUSE was the book they needed right now."

Want to read The Farmhouse?

Chelsea's adult thriller debut is available in paperback, ebook, and audio from all the usual places: your indie store, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Audible, Libro.fm, and others.

Find all the links at chelseaconradt.com.

Image Credits

All photography in this piece was done by Kimber Williams at Kimber Photo Co.

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Freewrite with AI

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March 22, 2026 • 3 min read

Freewriting vs. Thinking

If you're new here, freewriting is “an unfiltered and non-stop writing practice.” It’s sometimes known as stream-of-consciousness writing.

To do it, you simply need to write continuously, without pausing to rephrase, self-edit, or spellcheck. Freewriting is letting your words flow in their raw, natural state.

When writing the first draft of a novel, freewriting is the approach we, and many authors, recommend because it frees you from many of the stumbling blocks writers face.

This method helps you get to a state of feeling focused and uninhibited, so you can power through to the finish line.

How Freewriting Gives You Mental Clarity

Freewriting is like thinking with your hands. Some writers have described it as "telling yourself the story for the first time."

Writing for Inside Higher Ed, Steven Mintz says, “Writing is not simply a matter of expressing pre-existing thoughts clearly. It’s the process through which ideas are produced and refined.” And that’s the magic of putting pen to paper, or fingertips to keyboard. The way you learned to ride a bike by wobbling until suddenly you were pedaling? The way you learned certain skills by doing as well as revising? It works for writing, too.

The act of writing turns on your creative brain and kicks it into high gear. You’re finally able to articulate that complex idea the way you want to express it when you write, not when you stare at a blank page and inwardly think until the mythical perfect sentence comes to mind.

Writing isn’t just the way we express ideas, but it’s how we extract them in the first place. Writing is thinking.

Or, as Flannery O'Connor put it:

“I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say.”

Writing isn’t just the way we express ideas, but it’s how we extract them in the first place. Writing is thinking.

Freewriting to Freethinking

But how and why does it work? Freewriting makes fresh ideas tumble onto the page because this type of writing helps you get into a meditative flow state, where the distractions of the world around you slip away.

Julie Cameron, acclaimed author of The Artist’s Way, proposed the idea that flow-state creativity comes from a divine source. And sure, it certainly feels like wizardry when the words come pouring out and scenes seem to arrange themselves on the page fully formed. But that magic, in-the-zone writing feeling doesn’t have to happen only once in a blue moon. It’s time to bust that myth.

By practicing regular freewriting and getting your mind (and hands) used to writing unfiltered, uncensored, and uninterrupted, you start freethinking and letting the words flow. And the science backs it up.

According to Psychology Today, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex goes quiet during flow state. This part of the brain is in charge of “self-monitoring and impulse control” – in other words, the DLPFC is the tiny home of your loud inner critic. And while that mean little voice in your head takes a long-overdue nap, you’re free to write without doubt or negative self-talk.

“With this area [of the brain] deactivated, we’re far less critical and far more courageous, both augmenting our ability to imagine new possibilities and share those possibilities with the world.”

Freewriting helps us connect with ourselves and our own thoughts, stories, beliefs, fears, and desires. But working your creative brain is like working a muscle. It needs regular flexing to stay strong.

So, if freewriting helps us think and organize our thoughts and ideas, what happens if we stop writing? If we only consume and hardly ever create, do we lose the ability to think for ourselves? Up next, read "Are We Living through a Creativity Crisis?"

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