WRITING TOGETHER SESSIONS

~ Notes and Details ~

We’ll meet online on Wednesday 10 am to 12:30 pm Pacific time. 

Here’s the link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84914144375 

Sessions are free but occasional donations are welcome (suggested range of US$20 to US$65). But if finances are an issue for you, please come anyway!

Ways to make contributions can be found at this link on my website: Payments

Session Description:

More often than not writers work alone. Once in a while we must break the pattern of solitude and come together in creative community. 

For these sessions, we’ll meet for a live group call at 10 am pacific. We will start the session with a warm up exercise, the setting of intentions, and a short discussion. Then we will move to our own work for 90 minutes. At 12 noon we will check in again, assess our progress, and plan our next steps, but you can choose to opt out of this talk-time and just keep writing if you want.Community Time: 10:00 to 10:30 am ~ Warm up exercises, introductions, setting intentions, short discussion 

WRITING TIME: 10:30 to 12 pm ~ with a stretch and water break halfway through (2 X 45-min writing stints)

Community Time: 12 to 12:30 pm ~ Check in, share progress, plan next steps

What you’ll need: 

  • A computer with WIFI access to connect to the live Zoom calls.

  • A notebook and pen for certain warm up exercises and notes.

  • The project you’re working on open and ready to go.

Other essential items: a favorite writing implement and a notebook/pad. Even if you prefer using electronics, please make sure you also have a notebook and pen handy since we will be doing some handwritten exercises. 

You may wish to have on hand: a water bottle, coffee or tea, and a snack.

I'll open the meeting10 am, but if you click on the link before that you’ll hang out in the Zoom “waiting room.” If you don’t yet have Zoom, you’ll be prompted to download the application and it’s pretty straightforward from there. (If you have any concerns about doing this, please get in touch with me and we can set up a trial run ahead of time.)

Preparations and Logistics:

Please try to log in on time. I like to start off these groups with a 10-min writing exercise right away. As writers, we write. So I like us to connect with ourselves on the page before we connect with each other as a group through talking. (This writing won’t be shared.) 

If, for some reason, you are late for our meeting, just know we will likely be in the midst of writing for the first 10 minutes. Join us. Personal introductions and intentions setting will come after this brief writing time.

After writing, we’ll briefly introduce ourselves and voice our writing intentions for the session. (If the group is larger, we may do this using the chat window.)

By 10:30, sometimes sooner, we’ll settle into the writing session, focusing on our chosen intention. You will have the option to turn off your video and audio, or you can keep it on, which can give a sense of being in a room together. We will write “together/apart” for a total of 90 mins, with one short stretch and water break at the 45 minutes mark—I will call you back to the meeting room for this little break. Then we will write again for another 45 minutes. This will take us to 12 noon, at which point we will gather again to discuss how things went for each of us.

If you leave the meeting or lose connection to the meeting, just reconnect using the same link. (This could happen to me, the host, as well, and if it does I will rejoin the meeting too. In the worst case scenario, if we can get back into the meeting, I will send an email with a new link.)

You’ve set aside this chunk of time to write so I encourage you to protect and honor it.

 ~ Tell those who need telling that you’ll be immersed in your writing for this period of time.  

~ Remind yourself that you have this one focus for this two and half hours. Consider disconnecting from news and notifications. See if you can treat this time as sacred.

~ Reflect on your intention for the session. I encourage writers to be realistic and generous when it comes to intentions. You can’t get everything done in 90 mins but you can get something done.

~ Take time this evening to set up your writing space and with the things you’d like on hand—a notebook or pad and pen for some handwritten notes and exercises, your computer, charger, and headphones, a mug for coffee or tea, a water glass or bottle, a candle perhaps, to light while you write, and maybe a plant or a flower for beauty and as a reminder that you will be tuning into your own natural rhythm of creation.

 I look forward to writing with you!

~April