Little and often

I’d love to have vast swathes of time to do nothing but write, but I haven’t got it. So little and often works for me. What about you?

For three years now, pretty much every Wednesday, I’ve been writing with others on Zoom. We started in spring 2020 (no prizes for guessing why, but here’s some context), and I can’t imagine stopping. Except for holidays, of course. We started doing half-day mini writing retreats, because that’s what I had been doing offline. With a colleague in the library once a week, ending with a long lunch. Now, we meet online on Wednesdays at 9:30 am Helsinki time. We share our goals for a few minutes (camera on), write for an hour (cameras and mikes off), then take a few more minutes to plan our next steps. For me, mid-week works well, as even with a six-day weekend, I should be writing then. And if there are other deadlines, I can fit them in later that day. It’s a popular time for team meetings, but that’s what this is, too.

It’s a writing meeting. As Rowena Murray and Morag Thow say, if you can’t make time for writing that other people will respect, call it a meeting. Then they won’t bother you. Your diary is full, you’ve booked your room. You can work undisturbed.

While a writing session like this has a clear structure, it’s more flexible than a retreat. On a writing retreat, I expect people to commit to the whole day or all the days, with no distractions. There are costs involved. The online writing sessions are free. And so long as you don’t disturb other writers, you can be freer with the structure. If you have to be somewhere else, pop a message in the chat and leave early. If you come in late, you keep your mike and camera off and join the flow. If you can’t make it for months because you’re teaching, or have a dance class, or have been ill, or are too busy, that’s fine. If you only come when you’ve got a massive deadline, you can start writing without some friendly faces round you. If you write with me every single week, I’ll be delighted. Because that’s what I aim to do. And I’m happy to see you when you can make it.

During these Wednesday sessions, we write all sorts of things from blogposts to books. In early summer one of us joined from a different country every week, as they moved around doing research. In the new year we used it to write an article in 12 weeks. You use it for what you want to write, when you need to write it. And you can write in any language. We speak a mix of Finnish and English, and most weeks, people are writing in more languages than that.

Perhaps a huge project is looming over you like a storm cloud. Or there’s that one tiny task that you can’t find time for. Or you need a bit of a push to get back into something you’ve been putting off. For some, the hardest part of writing is starting, for others, it’s finishing. But an hour isn’t so bad. Having some other people to write with, just for an hour, is doable. Little and often adds up to a lot.

If you want to join us, help me choose where and when we’re writing next, and I can send you our regular Wednesday link. See you on Wednesday?

PS For Finnish speakers: 1.9. Camilla Lindholmin kanssa puhutaan yhteisöllistä kirjoittamista Tohtoriverkoston kirjakahveilla. Tervetuloa mukaan!