Greetings, writers, and happy July!
It’s a new month, and normally, I’d be posting a new photo writing prompt for the monthly contest we’ve been running for six years. I’d share an interesting photo, give a prompt, and invite your creative responses to it in under 500 words. I looked forward to reading your submissions as each month drew to a close, then selecting one to feature in the first email of the next month, along with a new photo prompt.
What I loved about this monthly contest was the chance to share your work with the few thousand writers who receive our emails. What was missing, though, and what I most want to cultivate at this particular moment in history, is connection not just through the product of our writing, but through the messy-middle process of our writing lives.
Starting today, I intend to use the first post of each new month as an opportunity to write you a letter and present a relevant topic as a talking point for our writing community to explore and discuss throughout that month. I’ll use our extensive blog archives for ideas, or the Center team will come up with one together, or, if there’s a topic you want to connect with other writers around or want to learn more about, you can leave a comment or send me an email and pitch it.
I thought we could start with something practical, logistical, physical: our writing spaces.
Where do you write?
A few years ago, I wrote about optimizing a writing space with these three directives: make it clean, make it comfortable, and make it your own. We were in the second year of COVID, so I was deeply familiar with what was and wasn’t working about my own writing space, and I’d thought, this is something all writers have in common. The writing happens somewhere, no?
“Your ideal writing space might look very different than mine. And it might not even be ‘ideal,’ only workable. Some of us might be sharing space or devices with others. Maybe you only have a corner of your dining room table for writing…but you can work with that. You can make it your own, if only for the time you are actually writing. And making it your own matters a great deal.”
So this month, let’s talk about our writing spaces. Tell us what makes yours work for you. Vent about not having a dedicated space or follow along for ideas on how to create one, if you don’t already have it, and then share the process and outcome with us. Feel free to post pics of your antique rolltop desk, or the organized chaos of your desktop, or the unwieldy stacks of books teetering on every surface of your home office.
Let’s connect over where the writing magic happens for each of us. Can’t wait to hear from you.
Sincerely,
Stacia M. Fleegal, director
