Before the new prompt for this week, a quick check-in: have you added anything to your ongoing note/list? Have you started writing about anything from the list? What, if anything do you notice about how the act of keeping the list itself acts as a prompt? Is there anything noteworthy about what kind of things you are jotting down or which things you write down ultimately take your attention when you sit down to write?
This sounds a little geriatric millennial distance-runner-in-a-yoga class, I know, but I am really trying to approach my writing practice (see, yoga language) with curiosity. When do I feel energized to write? What stops me from getting started, from continuing? Sometimes the answer is pretty simple (in the case of what stops me: I don’t like what I’m working on, I don’t know how to fix a problem I can see, I have too much grading to do, I am reading something vapid on the internet), but sometimes it’s more complicated and taking the time to think critically about how I might better set myself up is useful. (Better set myself up doesn’t necessarily mean write more words or more often, I’m learning. I’ve often run my best races shortly after taking a short time completely away from running due to marathon recovery or illness. There’s clearly a point where not having run would start to prevent me from running well, but the rest, at least in some small quantity, almost always makes my legs fresher.)
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