Writing Meetings are back! And other updates...

To anyone going "What the hell is a writing meeting?" (which might be one person lol), allow me to explain. When my bestie Jaime and I were writing the Midnight Daze series together, we would meet once or twice a month to work on it in person. Well, we stopped doing that when we stopped writing together, obviously. Technically it fell by the wayside before that, but the point is, we had stopped meeting in person to discuss our writing.

Until last month.

That's when Jaime had the awesomest idea--we could start meeting again, not to work on MD together, but to just talk about our individual writing projects, bounce ideas off each other, and read through The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, doing some of the exercises. Just reigniting our creative sparks and encouraging/supporting each other in our writing endeavors.

So that's what we did. And it has been SO fucking cool so far. We've only done two meetings, but those two meetings were so much fun, and they have really helped rekindle the flame. It's a tiny flame, but it is growing. And I'm loving it!

The first meeting was held at the library. We checked out a study room for privacy (I don't know if private study rooms are a thing at every library, but I highly recommend checking to see if your local library has them and if so, do it one day!), and she bought me a coffee (our library has a coffee shop inside it!). We started a new tradition of writing down "assignments" for ourselves and each other, some based on The Artist's Way, the rest being of our own choosing. The deadline for completing the assignments was the next meeting date, meaning we gave ourselves an entire month to do everything on our lists. If we didn't complete them all, no worries. We could just add what we didn't finish to next month's list.

The second meeting ended up being over the phone instead of in person, but it was just as awesome. We talked for over 3 hours! It was so much fun! We reported on our assignments and came up with new ones. I actually did more than I thought! My only shortfall was artist dates--I only did one, and I hadn't even counted it as one until Jaime suggested it. What was it? (Re)setting up my writing notebook. Hey, that works! But yeah, we're supposed to try for 3 artist dates between meetings.

Ok, so for those who may stumble across this and wonder wtf I'm talking about, artist dates are where you take yourself on a "date" to anywhere you want (or stay at home) and do something related to your creativity--color, read, write, watch a movie or TV show, shop in a thrift store, enjoy some coffee or tea, anything that either sparks your creativity or nurtures you in some way. The entire purpose of it is to refill your creative well.

The other main habit Julia Cameron swears by is Morning Pages. The concept in a nutshell: you get out of bed in the morning, grab a notebook and pen, and write three pages of whatever comes into your mind, stream of consciousness. And you're allowed to write stuff like "I don't know what to write" over and over if you want. No grammar rules, no censoring yourself. Basically word vomit, brain dump, get messy. The point is to get the shit that's rattling around in your brain when you first wake up out of said brain onto paper.

Now, her suggestion is to fill three whole pages. But me? HELL no. My brain ain't having it, especially not when I first wake up, so I tweaked the concept to fit my unique situation. My "rules" are as follows:

1. Minimum one word. That's it. If that's all my brain can handle in the moment, so be it.

For the record, I have yet to write just one word. However, there have been many days where I only write one or two sentences. It just depends on how I feel in that moment.

2. Although I have the option to write "I don't know what to write," if I really don't know, I just won't write. "I can't" or "Not today" or "My brain ain't having it" or even just "nope" will suffice. Bottom line, I will not force myself to write anything. Because that's the quickest way to get me to NOT write! Forcing NEVER works. And there's just something about "I don't know what to write" that makes me feel like I'm trying to force myself to come up with something. So nope. I refuse to torture myself.

Having said that...

3. TMI Warning! I start most of my MP sessions in the bathroom. Why? Because my body is a bitch. When I first wake up, the very first thing I absolutely HAVE to do is run to the bathroom. I have IBS/ulcerative colitis, which means every morning I'm usually spending a minimum of 20 to 30 minutes on the toilet. No exceptions. There's nothing I can do about it bc I can't afford the medication to take care of it. Even the OTC stuff is too expensive. So, since it's a part of my reality, I decided to work it into the equation.

Why is this such a big deal? Well, this was a mental roadblock for me. This is what kept me from keeping up with Morning Pages before. See, what you and many others (and myself before I had this breakthrough) may imagine when you think of Morning Pages is someone sitting at their desk at sunrise with a fresh cup of coffee and a journal. The house is quiet, no distractions, blah blah blah. Sure, it's a beautiful image...but that's just it. It's an image. It is NOT reality, especially not for me. Therefore, if I really wanted to do MPs, I had to break that mental image and figure out how the hell I was going to have enough time in the morning to scribble something down before getting ready for work.

The funny thing is, the whole point of Morning Pages is to be messy with them. It's to clear the cobwebs and shit out of your mind so you can have mental clarity and start your day off a little better. So why the hell would I need my situation to be "perfect" in order to benefit from what MPs have to offer?

And benefit I have! Since I started doing MPs in this way, it has helped me gain some much-needed clarity about my life, my health, and my creativity. No, things are not absolutely great, and they sure as hell will never be perfect, but that's okay. BEING MESSY IS PART OF THE PROCESS.

So, while I highly recommend reading The Artist's Way and doing Morning Pages and artist dates, I do not recommend doing them exactly the way Julia Cameron says to do them. The whole point of the damn book and concept are to refill your creative well and find your spark again. The things in the book are suggestions, not rules, although she will make them sound as such. Just put your own spin on whatever she says and you'll be fine!

So...how has all this affected my writing?

It's definitely helped. I have started working on MD again. My progress has been extremely slow, but that's okay. This is not a race. I'm having fun when I write, which is my ultimate goal. I'm nurturing my creativity and celebrating every win along the way, no matter how small. Among those small wins:

I've written a scene and added to it a tiny bit.

I've got notes for other scenes I plan to do.

I've got notes regarding the overall plot.

I've been doing brain dumps about it.

And...I've been working on this blog post for the past few days while I'm at work.

So, that's all the updates for now. If you've read everything up to this point, bless you! Here's a cookie 🍪 and if I had any real ones, I'd share! You rock! 🎸

Well, this was one of my assignments that I can now check off my list! I hope to do more blogging in the future, hopefully the near future, but for now, byeeee!