A few years ago I tried to reconcile with the fact that I often spent 75 to 150 discrete revisions on a single short story, often left with a piece that had lost anything that made it exciting when I’d begun it. I came up with a method to try to address this. And it changed my life. This class gets into that method. It’ll describe the method, and include supplementary information—what you need to know about memory, forgetting, stages of creativity, etc.

But Showing Up is more than the theory. It’s a practice I’ll hold you to, in three-week increments (gently!). You’ll be required to send me 500–800 words a night over the three weeks. You’ll be allowed one day a week you can skip. But otherwise, you’ll need to come up with something, submitted to me nightly. When you learn the method, what becomes of this will make a little more sense. But, essentially, by the end of the three weeks, you’ll have up to 16,800 words generated.

I’ll also provide several other methods I use regularly to tease more out of starting ideas.

The method did something unexpected to my brain. I hadn’t realized it would unlock something in my imagination, make it more receptive to creative memory. I also suddenly found that I could revise a finished piece only a couple of times and it might be ready to send out.

This class will meet over three weeks of one-hour zoom sessions. After that, if you want to continue sending me work and getting advice, we can renew the class privately in three-week increments at a lower rate, without the class component, but including a monthly conference.