Join us!
It’s fall break. Where two days off from teaching and two nights of adequate sleep mean that I can conquer the world. Or at least, I can try to recommit to writing as a regular practice. One of the many reasons that it is hard to write regularly is that the world is full of reasons not to. And there are not a lot of folks looking to read the half-cooked sentences we write as we sort out our thoughts.
But hear me out. What if I gathered a few folks to try a version of ye olde NaNiWriMo or National Novel Writing Month. I hear they are out of fashion for declining to oppose automated writing on the grounds that it’s classist and ableist. And hey, the pros and cons of LLMs for disabled writers could be a fun writing prompt for our own little Angry Cyborg writing group. I mean, ugly cyborg. Or really you can identify as any kind of cyborg you’d like to be. But Angry Cyborg has a nice ring to it.
Rather than trying to get a whole novel done in a month, what if we did a daily challenge to write for 30 minutes a day for each day of November 2026? No distractions, no internet, set an intention and even if you just stare at the intention for 30 minutes you get a gold start. Gold star. Either. Or what would you like to get? You get a few words written down and you get a brain rewired for creative thought.
I imagine we start with a short paragraph of introduction, then a short paragraph of intention. On Mondays and Fridays I’ll offer a prompt if that helps, something like “what are your favorite strategies of resistance to AI?” Or “what’s your favorite pre-writing ritual?” But most days I imagine we can just check in to celebrate that we did spend the time on deep work that may not be urgent but is important. Maybe I am having a false burst of fall break ambition and I will end up just writing emails and tenure letters but hey. I’ll post my updates on substack and writers can respond by email or comment on the post. Want to join me?
