Led by Swan Huntley, the author of the novels Getting Clean With Stevie Green, The Goddesses, We Could Be Beautiful, and I Want You More. She is also the writer and illustrator of the journal-style mini-tomes The Bad Mood Book and You’re Grounded. Swan earned an MFA at Columbia University and has received fellowships from MacDowell and Yaddo, where she was the 2019 recipient of The LeSage-Fullilove Residency. She lives in Los Angeles.

In this 3-week online course, we’ll focus on how to move through the difficult moments in our writing process.

Designed for writers at all levels, we’ll discuss the many forms of getting stuck. Is it that we can’t start? Or can’t finish? Or don’t know what comes next?

Through fun writing exercises and short lectures about the process of writing, this course aims to give you tools to help you improve your relationship to your practice. We’ll discuss practical tips for you to use in your day-to-day life, and we’ll also ask ourselves some very basic questions about why we started writing in the first place, and how that corresponds with our feelings on writing now. Are we enjoying ourselves? Do we feel a sense of playfulness around writing? When we write, what are we getting out of it?

By the end of this course, my hope is that you’ll have a renewed sense of energy around your writing practice and will be better equipped to move through the tough moments with ease.

Course Reading: Swan will provide a PDF of Ann Patchett’s The Getaway Car.

COURSE OUTLINE:

Week 1: Fear We will introduce ourselves via this in-class prompt: In THIRD PERSON, introduce yourself and tell us: 1. What has been keeping you from writing? And 2. What is the one thing you want to finish? We will discuss our fears around writing, and the things in our day-to-day lives that keep us from writing. Then we will do some in-class writing, because I’ve found that the best way to move through fear is to actually write something.

Week 2: Practice Through in-class writing and discussion, we will answer these questions: What does your practice look like now? What do you want it to look like? We will get very granular about this.

Week 3: Moving Forward What is your detailed plan for moving forward? By when will you finish that one thing? What does your writing community look like? We will discuss these questions and more, and my hope is that you will leave this class feeling renewed about your writing practice.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• New clarity around what has honestly been keeping you stuck.
• A detailed description of what your writing practice will look like moving forward.
• Clarity around what, exactly, you are trying to finish.
  

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE: