Word.ws English Dictionary

kickwriting

kickwriting noun: a frenzied, first-person style of writing.

Noun

kickwriting (uncountable)

  1. A frenzied, first-person style of writing.
    • You must and will go on at all costs including comfort & health & kicks; but keep it kickwriting at all costs too, that is, write only what kicks you and keeps you overtime awake from sheer mad joy.1996, Jack Kerouac, Ann Charters, Selected letters, 1940-1956, →ISBN, page 242
    • A rapid typist, Kerouac hit on the idea of typing nonstop to get the 'kickwriting' momentum he wanted.2011, Ann Charters, On the Road (Introduction), →ISBN

Examples of kickwriting in a sentence

  • ... many experimental contemporaries—an unplotted, visionary, kickwriting syntax.2011, Zahn Pesh, Cat-Cup Clones: A Fictional Memoir, →ISBN, page v:
  • Only by using his free-flow style of “kickwriting” did Kerouac believe he could capture the vibrancy of the man that inspired the book, his friend Neal Cassady.2012, Nick Tasler, The Impulse Factor: Why Some of Us Play it Safe and Others Risk it All, →ISBN:
  • To master this "kickwriting" style, Kerouac taped together 12-foot-long pieces of drawing paper, creating a continuous roll for his typewriter.2016 September 16, Celia San Miguel, “22 Literary Tattoos That Book Lovers Will Appreciate”, in The Stir:

Origin of kickwriting

From kick + writing. Coined by Jack Kerouac in a letter to Neal Cassady, describing Cassady's writing style.

Questions about kickwriting

What does kickwriting mean?
Kickwriting means a frenzied, first-person style of writing.
How do you use kickwriting in a sentence?
... many experimental contemporaries—an unplotted, visionary, kickwriting syntax.
What part of speech is kickwriting?
Kickwriting is a noun.

Words near kickwriting in the dictionary

  1. kicktail
  2. kicktails
  3. kickup
  4. kickups
  5. kickwheel
  6. kickwriting
  7. kickxellaceous
  8. kicky
  9. kicky-wickies
  10. kicky-wicky
  11. kid

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kickwriting (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “kickwriting.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kickwriting. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.