Sunday Writers Salon

Start Where It Hurts (Then Stay There)

Most writers know how to begin difficult material. What they don’t know how to do is stay.

They enter a charged moment, feel discomfort rise, and instinctively soften, summarize, intellectualize, or move on. The writing survives—but the truth thins out.

This workshop focuses on the precise moment writers habitually abandon the page.

Rather than circling or unpacking emotional blocks, Stay Where It Hurts asks writers to remain inside a single moment of tension—physical, emotional, or psychological—and write through its duration without relief, explanation, or resolution.

The work here is not about confession or catharsis. It is about pressure: holding the scene steady long enough for its meaning to surface on its own.