Stuck in a rut + Sit & Write #113
Greetings, friends!
I'm... writing? New things?!
I'm as surprised as you are, believe me. I started working on The Novel (working title "Haunt") in 2016 and have been gradually chipping away at it ever since. A couple years ago, I started Sit & Write because I thought I needed to establish a consistent writing practice to actually finish a full draft. And to an extent, it's worked. I have yet to meet that goal, mind you, due to a mid-draft realization about the plot that sent me back to page 1, but I really am making measurable progress. And apart from Sit & Write, I've added a some craft classes to my arsenal--dialogue, horror, and now fiction more generally--that are making the process less frustrating. A cohort for accountability and some coursework to bolster my skills and confidence; a DIY MFA, if you will.
One unexpected benefit to the DIY MFA plan was the writing prompts. These require me to think of new characters, in new scenarios, grappling with new problems. A few weeks into m…