In college, were you the kind of person who studied in your dorm room, headed to the lounge for the bustle and the noise, or staked out a carrell in the library to finish your work?
I was a library type. I liked the commitment, and the company even if we were each working on our own things. And I liked the librarians. It is lovely to know there is someone on hand to help if you need it.
Writing is usually considered a solitary sport.
But, do you have to do it all alone? It can feel very lonely sorting out the world, alone at your desk, with nothing but a cursor to keep you company.
“We don’t have to do the hard stuff alone. We weren’t meant to. We heal in connection. This is why it pisses me off when people shove my work into the self-help category.”
~ Brene Brown
Alone is hard. Community is better.
Every writer has sat at a desk and understood, it’s all on us.
We have to come up with the ideas. We create the characters. We move them around in compelling ways in a world of our own creation.
We each have to do it alone. You and your clear blue mind.
But alone gets lonely. And lonely can be overwhelming. And you’re never really alone anyway – you’ve got the voices in your head. Alone means you have to stand up to your doubts and self-judgments alone, too.
A writing community is better.
You don’t have to do it alone. You can do it with us.
Consider Zoom Your Library Carrell, and Consider Us Your Fellow Students
I have designed my life to have carrells, without realizing it. Every day of the week, I welcome writers into our writing room. We talk for a few minutes, and then write for about an hour.
Wouldn’t this help you?
- When you’ve got a time in your calendar, it tends to happen. Obstruction and disruption are limited.
- When you’re with other writers, on mute, with heads bowed, writing, you tend to also write. Resistance is already mitigated. Just by showing up.
- When you have a daily habit of writing for an hour, you write and progress. Pages mount up. Rewrites are completed on schedule.
- Daily engagement in writing your work tends to make “idle” time active and creative. The rest of the day is often spent thinking about your story. (Not constantly, but when you’re stirring a soup, or waiting in your car to pick someone up.)
Sometimes there is help out there that we haven’t even conceived of. Writing in a small and respectful group is that kind of help. Want to know more? Go to https://go.decodingcreativity.com/big-help . We write together, and it makes our days feel good.