Feeling a little rusty after a long absence of writing?

Been there!

Sometimes after a few months, or years of not writing, coming back to the habit of writing, or even thinking about writing projects feels overwhelming. I look at past writing and think, “How did I do that?” Anything I try to write looks simple and flat compared to what I used to be able to do.

Writing is a muscle and it can be worked out to get it back in shape. But you need low stakes to warm up with, not the projects most dear to your heart, the ones that you can’t bear to mess up.

Are you interested in warming up those writer muscles in a way that will leave you well-stretched and primed for your own writing later? These 31 days of writing exercises are designed to help you get back up to speed and ready to jump into your projects. You will have a guide along your journey and 4 ZOOM sessions together to talk about the exercises and share your experiences and writing. Don’t worry. No one is here to critique, only encourage, as you rebuild those muscles. Think of this as low-stakes Cozy-Workshop!

Prompts for short writing will be sent to your email every day. You can choose to write at your own pace–once a day, every other day, a couple times a week, and then choose the prompts that interest you. Or save them. The prompts will build on concepts and skills and, like a gentle workout that pushes you about half way in, will increase levels of writing skill for the 30 days.

This is designed for folks who have written before, though I will have links to refresher videos or writings or lessons to help re-orient writers. It won’t be designed to teach you everything you need to know about writing in 30 days, though. Just to help you remember things you might have forgotten over time.

If you are interested in this course, please email me at jeromestueart@gmail.com

Jerome Stueart (2007 Clarion Workshop) is an American and Canadian queer illustrator, writer, and professional tarot reader.  His writing has appeared in F&SF, Tor.com, On Spec, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, Geist, and elsewhere. He was a finalist for a 2020 World Fantasy Award in Short Fiction for “Postlude to the Afternoon of a Faun” (F&SF).  His PhD in English (Texas Tech U) with specialties in Creative Writing, Science Fiction & Fantasy, and Spiritual Memoir put him forever in debt, but has allowed him to live and work as a teacher part-time for more than 25 years, running writing workshops in academia and through city programming, in schools, in churches and online. He also has a background in theatre, history, tourism, and marketing. He was the former Marketing Director of the Yukon Arts Centre in Whitehorse, Yukon. An emerging artist and illustrator in watercolor and acrylic, he lives now in Dayton, Ohio.