i'm a big fan of freewriting - you only have to watch one or two coaching calls to know that i really believe in practicing writing, even if it's messy, stream of consciousness, little bits of flotsam that you store in folders in your Scrivner or Notion or Evernote or notebooks. but, sometimes that means you end up with tons and tons and tons of informal writing, and it can feel really overwhelming.
and so, here follows some of my best tips and strategies for transitioning from freewriting into something a little more formal"
try a side by side rewrite. one of the most frustrating thing for me is trying to edit freewriting into something more formal, so what i usually end up doing is having a blank document on one side, and the freewriting on the other, and i rewrite the freewrite into something more formal. it feels more like translation that revision, and that helps unblock me a little.
try a dictation-type translation. when i'm working to get things into actual sentences, i often speak more formally than i write in that draft 0 pass. so sometimes i will turn on voice - to - text (lots of different ways to do this with various tech setup) and use that as the basis of a more formal pass on my writing.
use a paragraph recipe - when i'm trying to get things into paragraphs, i often will use a paragraph "recipe" to help organize my thoughts - they're a little simplistic, sure, but thinking functionally (this sentence links back my evidence to my main idea, for example) helps to give me a roadmap, and then i can smooth out the writing once it's more formal.
try a phrase book - sometimes, i need a few ideas on how to make different kinds of sentences, and phrase books really help with that. my favorite is they say, i say , but i also like how dr. helen sword talks about sentences in this book, too, and there are a lot of suggestions in this thread too! (but you gotta be in the community to see it ;))
reverse outline the freewriting - sometimes i go through and i reverse outline my freewriting, or highlighting the most useful parts of it. the more i can trim down the freewriting, the easier it gets for me to wrestle with it