Post-Course Slump

Once the prompts stop, there's this emptiness. What do you do in the morning if you're not trying to write to a prompt? How do I start a poem on my own again? 

Silliness, I know. I have a bunch of books to look up my own prompts from. I can still sit down every morning and write regardless. I have been trying to when schedule permits. But there is a sense of loss when a good course closes down. The pressure of deadlines, the camaraderie of the other students' responses, their own writing and the discussions of writing in general, the push to write.  

The community is what I miss most. Writing is a solitary pursuit a great deal of the time. Finding a good writing group or course, one that fits your needs, your schedule, your style can be difficult. Writing groups can go for years at a slow trot, but sometimes you get a really good mix of people who just click, who know how to respond and encourage you to improve your writing and it's like a burst of adrenaline. 

Once the course stops or the writing group ceases to be as useful, what is a writer to do? Find another course or group, continue to slog on until you can build up your own momentum. 

I've created writing groups from members of courses that have really worked well. In Scotland we had a good fiction group that was formed after a course. It lasted for several years until we moved abroad. We met once a month and shared full chapters. It was a really positive and creative atmosphere. It's been nice to see a couple of the members get worked published since then. 

I'm slogging on until February when the next course begins. I decided against the more intensive course in January because it is more structured, but starts with the basics. While it never hurts to go back and reexamine the fundamentals, it's not what I want to do right now. If you're interested in the course, check this link though be quick as it has limited places and a high interest from members of the previous courses.

I've written 22 poems from the 31 prompts from this last session. I may continue to revisit the ones I haven't completed yet over the next week or so, but I'm pretty happy with that number. I'll continue to tighten those poems up and send them out for submissions. I'm also still working on the my new collection. And still waiting on the old.

And I might even crack out a prompt or two of mine own, just to keep the juices flowing.