Camera Lake by Alex Pickett. Madison, WI: The University of Washington Press, 2024. 189 pages. $17.95. Paper.
Photo description: Alex Pickett featured left and cover art for Camera Lake featured right
Photo credit: @alex_pickett1 on X
Book review written by Liz Barnett
Pickett’s short story collection Camera Lake has characters that feel human. This should be a given for any story, but Alex’s characters feel like anyone you might meet on the street. As a reader, you share with them their regrets, their anxieties, and even their loneliness.
The first short story in the collection “Practice” displays this wonderfully. The coach tests his teams’ fathers as a punishment for them, but it’s never anything embarrassing. Just the words “I love you Dad.” From this and a conversation with one of the team members we can feel how these are things the coach has probably never said to his own dad. It leaves the reader with a lingering feeling of things maybe they wish they had said to their own parents or even friends. There’s a sense of regret in the story that sits with the reader long after the story ends.
That feeling follows us into our next story, “At the Twin Pines Motel”. Our narrator who has run from her family to the motel is someone who seeks out thrills. Her old life bores her and she is currently lost with no idea where she is going. So much so that she begs Richard (A stranger) for any answer for who she is and what she’ll do next. She makes the reader confront their own feelings about what they want in life and who they want to be.
Finally, we come to the titular short story “Camera Lake”. A story in which our narrator thinks they’re being observed at home. We dive a bit into his past as a school counselor and begin to understand his need to move from a city to a small house on a lake in Wisconsin following the deaths of 3 of the students he counseled. We see his fear and the hesitation to get back to a normal life when he feels that everyone around him thinks he’s responsible for the deaths and the way he thinks he might have ruined his wife’s life because they moved so far away from their home of 16 years. When the main character finally lets out the breath he feels like he’s been holding, the relief for the reader is equally as satisfying.
Throughout the stories in this collection, there’s an ominous feeling that follows you. Like at any moment a twist could happen and the stories could turn into a horror film. Then the reader is
caught off guard when these expectations aren’t met. It’s interesting for the reader to be surprised by their own unmet ideas. Maybe Richard will be that creepy guy who murders our POV character…maybe the coach’s dog who goes missing was stolen by a student who was embarrassed by the texting punishment or their angry father who heard about the prank. Maybe our narrator in “Camera Lake” is really going crazy. There’s no one there with a camera watching them or his wife is gaslighting him or maybe he really is causing all these deaths. Then, we never have our fears confirmed. It should be something that leads the reader wanting for more excitement, but every time it feels satisfying to realize we’re jumping to conclusions and should just let Pickett’s stories carry us where he wants us to go.
Alex Pickett’s story collection Camera Lake plays wonderfully with the reader. Trying to tempt them into their worst fears and then always comes back to the human. Of course the dog wasn’t murdered. Of course Richard is just a normal guy taking over his uncle’s business. In fact, our POV character makes Richard uncomfortable.
Each story in Camera Lake excites you, making it hard to put down till you’ve read all 14 stories. The collection is gripping, powerful, and so human. A must read for fans of short story collections.
M.M Porter’s flash fiction piece titled “The Excavator and The Weaver” was selected for publication as the winner of the Winter Wheat 2024 Flash Fiction competition. During the competition, participants are given a short period of time to write a flash fiction piece from scratch. After each contestant completes their piece, the winner is selected through several rounds of crowd voting.
Author Biography: M. M. Porter is attending Ohio University to pursue her PhD in English with an emphasis in Poetry. She is a graduate of the MFA poetry program at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. She has been published in Epiphany, The Shore, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Originally from Michigan, you can find her work at mm-porter.com.
The son of the blacksmith had always been in prison. There was no before or after, for him; there wasn’t even a now. Not a now like you and I know. He just was in prison. The moon hadn’t learned to spin and the sun hadn’t performed a pirouette. This was because time had not yet been made.
The daughter of the cobbler was also in prison, the way one is imprisoned when nothing changes. The pair had no need of anything, and didn’t really mind their prisons. Occasionally, the two would talk. It was only before, after, and between this talking that the pair decided that they didn’t care much for prison anymore. The cobbler’s daughter wanted to find a way out of their cells. The son of the blacksmith wanted to find a way to merge their cells.
He thought they would be content, if only they shared. Often, he would take his nail and scratch at the wall between them. The prison walls were skeptical of this, because the blacksmith’s son was trying to change things. However, the rocks allowed such things, if only to breed a new contentment and stillness. And though, for us, nails against rock would take a lifetime to break, the son of the blacksmith had no such concerns. And thus, the cells became one, and they talked face-to-face, and space was born. Black and brilliant. Infinite.
But the daughter of the cobbler was not contented. She insisted there would be a way out. All this space had made her cold. Besides, If they could combine their walls, they could do other things. But nothing happened, and how could they escape if no dog with a key in its mouth came down the hallway? Or no guard fell asleep? Or no food was brought by a pitying kitchen servant?
So the daughter of the cobbler took the only thing that seemed to change, and started to braid. She pulled black hair from her head, and blond from the son of the blacksmith’s head. With each hair she threaded together, she felt hope overtake her. She shaped their hairs patiently until they formed a stiff key. She placed it inside the lock through the bars, and turned the key. The son of the blacksmith was scared, but the bars were already opening. And as they stepped out, time began to unfold.
I’ve been tasked with capturing the spirit and experience of Winter Wheat 2024. I’ll offer first a series of images and momentarily shift responsibility to you, earnest reader: imagine the Education Building, in all its eastern bloc nobility; a gaggle of impassioned writers, buzzing in disquiet; dark, fall evenings with winds a shade warmer than we deserve; and a smooth Saturday morning where hope sprinkles in tease of snow. There was coffee. There were snacks. Writing was done. Some learning, too.
But it’s all best stated by our presenters, guests, and organizers.
Nathan Fako, poetry MFA student and co-presenter of the Elegies for Disappearing Nature workshop, finds that Winter Wheat “was fine, wonderful. It was warm. Gatherings of writers… I feel like we’re all kind of awkward people. We wanna keep to ourselves. We like to be alone to think. There’s an apprehension, generally, when we get together, but the warm atmosphere assuaged that feeling. It was fun.” He felt that the “workshops were accessible. There was clear work put in to make the content accessible to someone with no experience with writing, but also to make it interesting to those who are experienced.” His concluding thoughts, which should be remembered: “I’ve never been to a literary festival before, and I really enjoyed it. I thought it was great. It was nice to see so many people passionate about the same thing. I find that heartwarming. Or terrifying. I don’t know which.”
Liz Barnett, fiction MFA student who presented on adaptation, found that Winter Wheat “went really well.” They stated, “In the end, I had a lot of people tell me it was fun. [The workshops] I went to were accommodating; they provided materials, it never felt like I wasn’t prepared, and it didn’t feel like I was being excluded from any activities.” Liz said finally that they’re “looking forward to running a workshop again next year” that will explore revenge stories.
Michelle, an attendee, offered similar sentiments on the warmness: “I had concerns that Winter Wheat would be workshops where the presenters sort of droned on about things they didn’t seem to really care about, but I was happy to find that the presenters had interesting topics that I didn’t know much about. They seemed excited to be there but also relaxed. It felt like nobody was going to make fun of me for my lack of poetry knowledge.” She thought “people were going to be stuffy and have very specific and intense rules for writing,” but stated, “Thankfully, I was wrong. I feel like everyone there was open-minded and interested in exploring many different styles of writing.”
Abigail Cloud, Editor-in-Chief of Mid-American Review, thought “it went really well. People really needed it this year in a big way. There was a lot of worry going on, particularly among our population. People needed to be together and create together. [Attendees] wanted that opportunity to work in inspiring circumstances that are safe, where they can create and not be worried about anything else besides new work and new ideas.” Cloud spoke at length about the generative importance of Winter Wheat, how it “puts focus back on creation, the generation of new ideas and work,” an attitude shared by Haley Souders, Winter Wheat Coordinator. Souders stated, “I always come out of [Winter Wheat] wanting to write more. This year I left wanting to take a look at my thesis project. I feel like I’ve been in a little bit of a gray area with it, where I’m not feeling as much joy writing it, but after spending a few days talking to people who are interested in writing, I feel inspired.”
Cloud also highlights regionality, the “quintessential midwestern aspects of comfort and value of togetherness.” For Cloud, Winter Wheat fosters a sort of camaraderie: “The region, as much as it is here, it is a place, it is more about the attitude and knowledge that we are coming to a place that represents some level of comfort to people.” Souders also touched on the importance of place, stating, “I feel like the words “literary community” have gotten thrown around a lot when talking about Winter Wheat, but having events that are free to attend is important because people from all over can come together to talk about art and writing. Who knows in five years if we will be able to do these things? Humanities are being defunded across the board. It’s important to have [Winter Wheat] and maintain it.”
Finally, Cloud defines Winter Wheat: “The word I’m going to pick is fervent. There’s a real desire to put new work together and take advantage of seeing friends. That’s how I felt. I had some friends there that I haven’t seen in a really long time. I wanted to fervently soak time up with them while they were there with me. I think that’s the best energy that we can hope for and create, just having an immediate connection and desire to what we were doing.”
And here’s what I’ve been thinking about lately, pre and post Winter Wheat: among a few other pesky things, John the Savage tells us to find poetry, God, freedom, sin, and goodness. His distant cousin Alexander Supertramp tells us to honor Ahab, but advises we not forget the dominant primordial beast. Locate ambition, but do not forget hubris. Writers are strange; sometimes we are arrogant, sometimes self-dismissive. Maybe we have ethereal jobs, biblical duties, and great importance – maybe not. It does not matter. Find a warm atmosphere with gentle souls like Winter Wheat, sit awhile, and play toward peace.
The MFA once seemed like a secret society existing only for the surest, truest, most brilliant writers, and more importantly, a slingshot to success. I wondered if the MFA was a kind of pseudo-nepo-baby? Would Harper Collins or Penguin Random House see the degree and take my manuscript, no questions asked?
I was a junior at Duquesne University when I first heard of an MFA program in creative writing from my fiction professor. The two faculty members in my small program who had MFAs held an informational meeting for all of us who hoped to break into this secret society. Only three of us attended the meeting, eager to know: Was this our ticket to becoming a writer, truly and honestly? Was this the way to see our name in print, making a career out of the scribbling we did in the solitude of our rooms?
Instead, we learned it was, at best, a boutique degree. At least, that’s what they said. I still don’t know what that means except that I figure it’s what a boutique is: unique, specialized, and overpriced. These were not meant to be words of discouragement from our faculty but rather words of caution. Don’t overemphasize its significance. Don’t go into debt. My all-knowing twenty-one-year-old self took it with a grain of salt. I needed that piece of paper.
I spent my senior year of college compiling a spreadsheet of top-rated MFA programs, evaluating their location (East Coast, New England preferred), their stipend (one has to eat), teaching requirements, and professional opportunities (literary magazines, publishing, and editing skills). I was methodical and determined. I prepared my portfolio with the gracious help of my fiction professor with line-by-line editing and revised personal statement after personal statement. I was doing everything by the book, but the thing I wanted so badly, to write, was exactly what I’d stopped doing in the process. By March, I’d been waitlisted by one program and rejected from the rest. The rejections shook me. I saw graduate school as my inevitable future. How could I be done with my academic career? I needed the MFA to waive in front of all my doubters so that I could say, “Look here! I’m worth something.” Instead, I scrambled for the backup plan I hadn’t made as I walked across the stage to collect my diploma.
After the rejections, I retreated to my parents’ house in rural Lancaster County–the prodigal daughter’s return. I went back to my summer job as a prep cook and caterer in my small town at a cafe known for being an overpriced tourist stop, passing off Costco ingredients as locally sourced. I sliced deli meat and mopped floors and wondered if this is what it was all for after years of filled journals, carefully annotated short story anthologies, and Barnes & Noble gift cards. I felt myself to be a failure, the starving artist doomed to a food-service job, resentful of her unrealized potential. Still, I was determined to apply again; I needed to prove something. I spent the days after work, still smelling of grease and potatoes, shoveling spoonfuls of short stories down and carving out the pieces I wanted to steal like a butcher. I collaged my rejection letters together using some Modge-Podge to paste in a poster frame – my grand motivator. I got a story published, and some of my coworkers at the cafe read it. I came in one morning to the baker telling me she’d cried; it had stirred something in her, made her feel seen. I realized I was a writer to her.
It was the fall of 2023, a few months after my rejection. I stared at my poster frame collage, and I took it down. Until that point, I had been waiting for someone to permit me to write. I had been waiting for a graduate degree. I realized that having an MFA wasn’t going to make me a writer. It wasn’t a knighthood I needed to be inducted into. There was no monarch of writing and literature, no degree, that could grant me the title.
A year prior, when I was finishing my undergraduate program and our university’s last literary magazine was released, the other senior creative writers and I gathered for our pizza party in College Hall, a windowless classroom on the English department’s floor, and we signed each other’s poems and stories with bright-eyed optimism that our names would be widely in print someday. We treated the inside covers like yearbooks, and inside mine I have six notes that all say, don’t stop writing.
If there’s one thing I learned from my two rounds of applying to MFAs, it’s that intent matters. I reapplied, but this time I wasn’t chasing a degree, a title of prestige, or a sense of validation. The biggest part of creative writing that I missed was being around other writers, and that was my new intent. To learn from others, to be inspired, to sit at a roundtable workshop and voice ideas about how to make a piece work better and in turn, learn how to make my work better.
Now I’m here, at Bowling Green’s MFA program as a fiction writer. The first few weeks that feeling returned–the dreaded imposter syndrome. However, our first Q&A session for our Prout Reading series took place just last week with an alum, Jacqueline Vogtman. We all wanted to know, how do you make it happen after? When you’ve finished the degree and have dedicated two years of your life to writing, how do you return to the real world? We talked about writing habits, about making time for writing in the early hours of the morning, and about doing it every day. But we also talked about the connections formed in an MFA. Their cohort still talks and reads each other’s work. They’ve invited her to read her new book at the schools they teach at. So, the MFA is more than a degree; it’s an investment in a supportive community that knows what it’s like to sit behind the closed door and stare at the blank page. A community that knows what it’s like to Modge-Podge rejection letters onto a poster board.
Sitting in workshops in East Hall 406 with our printed copies of each other’s stories and our marginal notes, each of us tossing out what-ifs and questions, I feel like I am doing a lot more than earning a degree to frame on my wall. So, do you need the MFA? While I don’t think it will get you a published manuscript by default or get your relatives off your back about your employment status, I think it’s worth a lot more than that.
Jacqueline (she/her) was interviewed for an hour in the early afternoon on September 26th, 2024. This interview occurred in East Hall at Bowling Green State University, just a few hours before Jacqueline read at Prout Chapel for our reading series. We were thrilled to sit down with Vogtman and talk behind the scenes of life as a writer. The interview is split in two parts; part 1 was posted last week. This is part 2.
Jacqueline Vogtman received the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship, awarded earlier this year, 2024. Jacqueline graduated from BGSU’s MFA program in 2010. She currently teaches composition at Mercer County Community College in New Jersey. Vogtman’s short story collection, Girl Country, won the 2021 Dzanc Books Short Story Collection Prize and was published by Dzanc Books in May 2023. Vogtman’s book Girl Country is available for purchase with the following link:https://www.dzancbooks.org/all-titles/p/girl-country
Interviewer:
You’re a professor at Mercer County Community College, can you tell us a bit more about that?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
I mostly teach second level English comp, which is a little more fun than the first level. We get to incorporate literary sources in there, and I guide the students during a research project. It’s fun. I really enjoy working with my students.
As there is a steep growth curve for writing, there is also a steep growth curve for teaching. I was pretty young when I started teaching, and there’s this navigation of authority, like “How strict should I be? Are they going to respect me?” Maybe now that I’m older I feel like I don’t struggle with that as much.
I just give my students grace, kindness, compassion, and respect, and somehow it comes back to me. The last few years in the classroom, I’ve just felt so surrounded by love. It feels like I’m giving out love, and they’re giving it back to me. It’s a very nice feeling.
Interviewer:
It’s a big accomplishment to have your students trust and love you.
Jacqueline Vogtman
It can be hard to get to that point. I’ve felt this way for five years. Before I reached that point, I was still navigating asking, “How do I do this?” Then, eventually, I sort of found myself in the classroom, and I felt this confidence had been building inside me from being in the classroom for so long.
Maybe it’s also just being a parent. I don’t know what it is that changed in me, but I see my students as not my kids, but almost like secondary children. I imagine my daughter in the classroom and how I would want her to be treated.
Interviewer:
Has teaching taught you anything about your voice as a writer?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
My first instinct is to say no, probably not. I find inspiration everywhere. I’ve found it in the classroom with my students, their stories, lives, and even their names. I’m always struggling to find names for my characters, so sometimes I’ll look at my old rosters to see if there’s any good names there. Overall, it hasn’t played into my process a huge amount.
Interviewer:
I was wondering if growing confidence as a teacher has seeped into other areas of life?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
Yeah, basic principles like don’t beat yourself up for a shitty first draft or let yourself just write your ideas, and try to let go of that inner critic. These are some of the things that I would tell my students that I also tell myself.
Interviewer:
In your Mud Season Review interview, you were speaking about how the idea of “Girl Country” came to you after you had your daughter. Could you speak a little bit more about how parenthood has impacted your journey as a writer? Do you see your relationship with parenthood and writing as evolving or interconnected?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
On one hand, being a parent robs you of a lot of time that you might have previously had for writing. That’s the negative of it all. On the other hand, I don’t know if I would have been able to write this book if I hadn’t had my daughter. I’ve been so inspired by the journey of being a mother and watching her grow up, and, overall, just the struggle of parenthood, the struggle of breastfeeding.
The story of “Girl Country,” which is the title short story in the collection, came to me in a dream. My mind was always there because of struggles I had trying to breastfeed. A lot of the stories in the book have to do with women’s bodies and maternity.
I think sometimes when you become a parent, or when you have a full time job, those things take a lot of your time. It forces you to make time for your writing. Which might sound counterintuitive, but, sometimes, it’s helpful! Sometimes, it forces you to actually use the time that you have.
Interviewer:
That’s definitely a challenge. For the fellowship, is there anyone that you’re checking in with, or do you have to be on top of your own schedule?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
The fellowship is a lot of working with your own deadlines. You have to give yourself deadlines. I believe a lot of fellowships are like this, but this is the first fellowship I’ve received. It’s really flexible. When you’re chosen as a fellowship recipient, there’s money, there’s resources to help with writing, but, the money doesn’t have to be used for anything specific.
Some people might use fellowship funds to pay off debt if you can make a justification for why it’s going to help you. For example, someone might say, “I’m going to pay off a bit of credit card debt because the debt is really weighing on my mind that’s going to help me write better,” and that’s OK. For me, I paid for a couple of summer camps for my daughter, so I could do a little writing. It’s pretty open and flexible. I don’t really have to check in with anyone, but there’s an end of year report.
Interviewer:
In one of your previous interviews, you talked about coming from a working-class background and how that’s influenced your writing. Have you always been drawn to writing working-class stories?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
When I started writing fiction, I wanted to write characters that were similar to my family growing up. A family that maybe you don’t see as much in fiction. I remember one of my first weeks here in Bowling Green, I was talking with one of my fiction cohorts, who was a year above me, Dustin M. Hoffman.
He said something to me that resonated. He said something like, “I want to write real, working-class stories. People working, really working. I want to write stories that my dad will read. I want to reflect on the real-life experiences of blue-collar people which you don’t see as much.” And when he said that I was like “Yes, that’s what I want to do.” Do it in a different way, but that really matters to me.
Interviewer:
Definitely. The New England Canon of literature is so bound up in wealth. It’s interesting to see prose about characters who are different from that. We also wanted to ask what topics or themes have you been gravitating towards recently?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
The novel I’m working on has something to do with the American Dream. The family is a working-class family. Part of the novel has to do with finding out about a secret relative that someone’s father had a child from a previous marriage. Part of the novel also involves new genetics testing, and I’ve been looking into that. The novel’s set along the Delaware River, so I’ve been researching its history.
Interviewer:
I’m going to read a quote from an interview to get your thoughts, ‘I’m a poet from a working-class background, and I write poems about myself, and the people I grew up with who are working-class. I can’t really do anything else, which is why I don’t see my poems as a form of resistance against social expectations or economic pressures. I see them as approximate depictions of my reality,” is a quote from poet Sydney Mayes, interview is published in Only Poems. Does this quote resonated with you?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
Yeah. That rings true because I’m not… I’m not trying to make a statement. Anyone could say, “I’m going to write about this social experience because I think we should make a political statement about it.” But that’s not necessarily how I go about it. I approach writing by thinking about how I grew up, what I want, the people I want to write about, and the emotions, love, and complicated feelings that I have toward my childhood and background.
Interviewer:
That’s awesome. Do you see the literary world becoming more inclusive of working-class stories? Do you feel like working-class stories are adding to or expanding the canon of what’s considered literary instead of rebelling against the canon?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
In the past five years, maybe ten years, it feels like the literary community is becoming a bit more inclusive of different identities and backgrounds. Hopefully, that’s an expansion of the canon, right?
Interviewer:
We saw in one of your recent interviews that you’re bad with titles. We love the title, “Girl Country.” Do you think that’s still the case?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
That interview happened very early on in the writing of this book. Pretty soon after I had written the short story, “Girl Country”, that was probably the first story I wrote where I feel like the title came to me. And I liked it right off the bat. Thank you for saying you love the title.
When I came up with the title “Girl Country,” I could even see it as the title of the collection rather than just of a short story. I’ve gotten a little better at titles since back in the day. Sometimes, it’s still a struggle.
I figure out titles by brainstorming whole pages of different words and phrases to figure out what works best. But with some of the stories I wrote recently, I thought, “oh, that title wasn’t that hard to come by.” And I’m OK with that. Coming up with titles gets easier.
Interviewer:
What does a good title do in your opinion?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
A good title advances the theme of the story. Sometimes a good title adds something to the story that’s not necessarily even in the story. A good title catches the reader’s attention. But much of writing is still a mystery to me and forever will be.
Interviewer:
Do you think the mystery of writing is part of what draws you to writing?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
Maybe because of the lack of clarity. There’s no correct way to do writing. For instance, there’s no right or wrong. You don’t have to make definitive decisions all the time. I don’t know if mystery is what draws me to writing. Sometimes, writing feels like an impulse that’s existed in me forever, almost like dreaming.
I’m not necessarily drawn to writing because I like mystery. It’s just that mystery is part of writing. I know this is not a popular opinion because we don’t want mystery in the academy. When you’re teaching creative writing, you want to be able to say, “yes, you can teach creative writing.” And you can teach certain aspects of it.
Everyone’s born an artist. For some people it somehow thrives or takes off, maybe a little more in others. For some it ends up fading away for some reason or lingering inside them. Maybe it comes out in weird ways throughout their life.
Interviewer:
Thank you for your thoughtful answer. Your short stories are really stunning and incredibly powerful. In your short story, “Girl Country,” the girl is not named until the end of the story. We thought this was a very powerful technique. One of the many powerful craft techniques employed. Could you talk a little bit about the power of naming in creative writing?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
In that particular story, it is very intentional that she doesn’t get a name until the end because we don’t know her, we don’t get to. She’s a mystery who appears on the side of the road. We don’t know who she is. Then, at the very end, she transforms into a person with an actual name.
Interviewer:
Can you talk a little bit more about the power of naming?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
Naming can do so many things without even telling the reader much about the character, just the name can tell you certain basic things about them. With a name, sometimes, you can tell how old the character is or their culture or background. Certain things emerge from a name that are just basic stuff.
Names give you a level of specificity for a character. I have a story in the collection that there’s a character, a woman is just called, she’s “a woman” and not named throughout. Sometimes, I leave the characters deliberately unnamed to create a surrealist feeling.
The book isn’t realism. It’s a story that is almost dreamlike, not a real-life scenario where so-and-so has a name. Sometimes, I like to leave characters unnamed.
Interviewer:
When I was reading “Girl Country,” it felt very emotional to me when we got to the naming because in the story, I figured it was intentional. It felt incredibly powerful, to use a quote, “this girl who had braved escape and had come back just to save him.”
Jacqueline Vogtman:
Thank you.
Interviewer:
Do you have any tips for someone who has to figure out how to be a writer alone?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
You have to give yourself deadlines. It’s nice to have at least one other person holding you accountable like sharing work together on a deadline. It’s important to set up a writing routine. It’s great to have a writing routine where you do something every single day.
One of my old MFA cohort members, Dustin Hoffman, said he was going to force himself to write everyday even if it’s just a single sentence. I think that’s a manageable goal.
I’d also say give yourself some grace and don’t beat yourself up. Sometimes people when they don’t meet their goal will get down on themselves and end up throwing away their work which isn’t good.
