See you online for some writing today?

Your link to join the peaceful – maybe even therapeutic – Creative Hour.

Very much not the vibe in my head lately, but doesn’t this look peaceful?

I hope this week’s been kind to you.

Good writing really demands a lot of focus (and by good writing, I mean the type that’s rewarding and exhilarating to do, because we can feel ourselves expanding through it). As the novelist Meg Mason said on the In Writing podcast, ‘There’s a level of thought that you can get to in twenty minutes, and then there’s a level much deeper than that, which you need to reach in order to create good fiction. In between those two layers is a pain barrier that you’ve got to get through, and the only way to get through it is to just sit there and wait for it to pass.’

We have to be able to concentrate so deeply that we forget, for a little while, all the other concerns of our day; it feels like going into a room in your brain and closing the door behind you, leaving reality on the other side. For many of us, that’s challenging at the moment. Recently I feel more like I’m hanging around the open doorway, poking a foot in.

Today I’m hosting a Creative Hour – a silent writing session on Google Meet – which I hope will be a good antidote to that feeling. We’re going to be in it together and there’s nothing to do for that calm, quiet hour but write. I’m going to try to do so with a sense of freedom, and not too much stress about the outcome. I hope you can channel that feeling too.

I’ll be on Google Meet from 5pm UK time. There’s a timezone converter here for those who aren’t in the UK – just put your own location into the second section and it will let you know what time to show up.

If you haven’t attended a Creative Hour before, it’s a get-together for paying subscribers online. We say hello and have a brief chat, then write together in companionable silence for fifty minutes. It’s a small act of writerly solidarity, an opportunity to get to know other writers, and a lovely, uplifting way to end the week.

The schedule:

5pm GMT (that’s UK time): Click the link below to open Google Meet.

Please switch your camera on for the first few minutes while we settle in, and keep it on throughout the hour if you can bear it (it adds to the feeling that we’re all working side by side). As for microphones, we follow a general rule of staying on mute, then unmuting to speak. Please chime in during the chats at the beginning and end – I’d love to hear from you.

5.05-ish: Writing time. If you’re running late, you’re welcome to slip in whenever, but don’t be offended if we don’t say hello. As for what to write – it’s totally up to you. Pick up a project that you’ve been neglecting, start something new, or if you’re stuck for inspiration, do some journalling or write a letter.

5.55-ish: We’ll return to wrap up the hour and reflect on how it went.

6pm: Say goodbye, and feel pleased with yourself for the rest of the day.

The link: