Today I have a writing tip for you.
Live and In Person
If you are stalling, or stuck or procrastinating with your writing, there is something you can try.
You can write with other people,
live and in person. You don’t need to be friends with the people, you don’t need to be classmates or colleagues. Hell, you don’t have to even know their names.
Let me explain.
There is an app called
Meetup (and presumably if there’s one app, there must be others like it) where people schedule group activities, and anyone on the app can reserve a spot. There are language meetings (eg., Beginning Spanish roundtable), topics (eg, Philosophy in the Park) and then there are writing meetings (eg, Writing).
Someone, I guess the organizer
sets the parameters - the place, the time, the amount of people allowed to register.
And then all you have to do is click,
and be there at the appointed time and place. I’m sure there are online versions of this as well.
At the ones I’ve been to,
there is a 30 minute schmooze when you get there where people loosely discuss what they will be working on that day (however, saying “I don’t want to talk about it” is an acceptable answer). If it’s at a coffee shop, you get your beverage, hot or iced, and organize your computer or paper and pen (I’ve seen both), and then get started.
For an hour or two
you just sit there and work on your own project. There are no prompts. No workshopping. No word count. You can revise, you can resist, you can stare into your screen, no one will know what you’re actually doing. But. I find that sitting in the company of other writers, especially after having made the effort to show up to one of these events is motivating.
After the writing is over
some people stay to discuss how their session went, and sometimes make plans to meet up again later - I’ve heard movies, picnics and the occasional museum visit. I normally leave the minute it’s over, I’m just happy I can check that days’ writing off my list and move on to the next thing, but you might enjoy the post-Schmooze as well.
Persistence in your writing
can ebb and flow depending on what else is going on in your life, your energy level, your commitment to the project you are currently working on. Going to a writing meetup is an entirely practical way to circumvent all of that. You make a writing appointment, you show up, you do what needs to be done.
(and then you go home and check it off your list).
Speaking of in person
I am hosting a live, in-person, Creativity Workshop with my lifelong friend Brandee Safran on Sunday, August 24th from 10am to 2:30pm in Morin Heights, Quebec. We will be offering tips and techniques for building our own creativity muscles and participants will walk away with a plan for how to tackle our individual projects. Come hang out with us in nature and I promise you will leave energized. Click below for details, hope you can make it.