Surfacing: Closing Practices for Creative Writers - Paperback

by Emily Stoddard (Author)

SURFACING is a practice for writers and a book of 70 exercises to exit your writing time with care. Use it at the close of your generative writing sessions or free-writing, as a way to land after deep revision work, during writing retreats, and everything in between.

There's so much focus on how writers start creative practice. It's easy to find rituals, prompts, and tools for "getting into" the writing. But the threshold out of writing time can be just as meaningful, and it's often overlooked. What insight and momentum do you lose when you skip a thoughtful close? What if curiosity toward your endings is a key to more continuity in your writing practice?

SURFACING is a way to exit the creative flow with care, observe where you are in the process, and leave an opening for when you come back to your writing. The book includes:

• An introduction to the practice, with different ways you can use it to go deeper with your writing and build momentum.
• 70 closing practices, each a three- to 10-minute exercise for exiting your writing time.
• Tips to create your own closing practices, based on what's showing up in your writing and how you want to experiment with the creative process.