“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish... Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence in practice.” – Octavia Butler
At the center of Writing Lab, we will open notebooks and dive into a series of free-writing, list making, and drawing exercises. We will share strategies and structures for doing work in the midst of this pandemic. Our goal is to follow Octavia Butler and build habits that will persist.
PARTICIPANT FEEDBACK
What started as an assigned task to attend weekly, quickly turned into something I looked forward to. I was reminded of my strong writing abilities and inspired to explore that more in and out of my classwork. –Jenny Watson, student
How to use a notebook, or journal, is something that is so important to a lot of people's field so this class even made me question why I had never been formally taught. – student
The chance to think about writing and the notebook in a space apart from program content, which is always clamoring for attention and makes it hard to focus on form, approaches, creative interventions – Kathleen Eamon, faculty member
I like that writing lab changes things up in class, and gives me a space to find new ideas and break my habits with writing. – Ryan, student
“It has been a really important (if not the most important) part of the last two quarters of school for me. It has been a through line I can follow and return to when I get bogged down in the external world or in my course work.” – Annabelle Morin
“It is honestly my favorite part of the week.” – Maya Nathan
“It's an oasis in the frenzy of school work that occurs all week.” – Laura Allingham
"I love the ritual aspect of this, that every Wednesday at 10 we know we get to come together and tune in and listen to ourselves and each other with curiosity and without judgement. So I value the ritual and the feeling of community.” – Julia Zay, faculty member