Hello Muse Readers!
We have just completed the second week of January, and perhaps one of your writing goals this year is to set aside some dedicated time for working on a specific project—a full-length poetry collection, a chapbook, a group of personal essays, or maybe a novel. Your dedicated writing time might consist of a single day here and there during which you plan to work solidly for eight hours. Or maybe you will apply for a writing residency (or book a writing retreat), which will give you a week or two of concentrated work.
You have probably heard numerous writers say (and we have said it here at the Muse!) that writing should be looked at as a marathon and not a sprint. But, sometimes because of a busy schedule or preferred writing style, you need to speed things up and sprint during the precious hours/days of dedicated writing time you have set aside. Writing coach Chris Smith has come up with some good advice for these sprints, which he refers to as “a personal training pl…