“…The hour cometh and now is when I’ve got to do it. Get to it, Fred, get to it. But don’t let anybody ever tell anybody else that it was easy. It wasn’t.” -Mr. Fred Rogers, a letter to himself. “For our purposes you must have, in addition to the helps of nature, a well worked-out psychological technique, an enormous talent, and great physical and nervous reserves.” -Stanislavski, An Actor Prepares Ready, set, flow! Some writing days click like magic, some projects practically write themselves, but what about when they don’t? This practical course explores what we can do in the moments when deadlines loom, but the muse won’t wake up; how we can stay committed to our creative work amidst the rest of our lives. The act of writing requires attention to our internality, physicality, and reality of our circumstances and the world. Just as it benefits us to study what makes a strong voice or beautiful sentence, we benefit from studying what makes a strong practice and healthy instrument. In this course we’ll discover ways of preparing our mindsets and routines in order to have productive, consistent, and intentionally magical writing practices. Don’t wait for the muse, discover how to wake it up. This course will draw from the fields of acting, psychology, meditation/mindfulness and more. Through active exercises, discussions, readings, and practical assignments participants will gain tools for coaxing the muse, creating routines, maintaining flow, getting into character, reviving revision, navigating procrastination, expanding joy and more. We will practice and apply techniques, address individual goals, and create a community of committed creators. Who This is For: graduate writers of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, young people’s literature, screenwriting, academic writing. Visual artists welcome. Excellent companion class for thesis semester.