“Joining the writing room encourages me to make time to write, no matter what it is I’m writing. It is lovely to have this moment to connect with a community and moreover, to be part of the space that Rebecca holds for us.” Lucy Solnitt
Ridley’s Writing Room & The Write Lab
How do Writing Rooms work exactly? You bring your writing project, whatever state it is in and join with other writers online via Zoom, for free. We check in at the start and end of the hour, and in between you get that much-needed time to sink deep into your writing. YES!
Every Tuesday at 8pm I host Ridley’s Writing Room where writers gather in a virtual room to write together. It’s free and online. The Writing Room is a supercool space and it’s amazing how much you can get done in less than an hour. If you would like to join us, you can sign up here.
“The writing room is my time to write without interruptions from family. It helps me stay focussed for that time and having others doing the same thing is motivating. Even if I’ve not managed any time to write outside of that, the hour in the writing room gives me a chance to get back on track. It’s my writing me-time.” Hazel Walshaw
On Friday lunchtimes at noon UK, I co-host The Write Lab – a second hour in the week where writers can get together via Zoom for free and work on their latest writing projects. It’s a much sought-after quiet hour in our busy day where words and page get the opportunity to meet in a safe and supportive space. It’s a bit like a lunchtime running group – but for writers. If that sounds like something that would light you up then please do sign up via Calendly to join us here.
“I absolutely love the Writing Room, as it’s a weekly commitment to turning up & getting some words down! Doesn’t matter how productive (or not!) that hour is, having company to sit still with and not get distracted makes all the difference!” Astrid Blee
Why the Writing Room spaces?
I’m on a mission to get more of us writing in community. Not as the only way there is to write, but as a healthy, wholesome way that we can write. A way that is different to the normalised version of writing as an activity that happens alone, behind a closed door, a private, secretive process. In the writing rooms we get to be people who write together and there’s a real magic to it. For me there’s a rebellion to it too, it puts two fingers up at the lone, white, male writer, working away in their solitary ivory tower producing erudite words of prose. Writing is messy, it’s charged, it’s empty, it’s difficult to find time for, it’s difficult to stop once you get started. It can be done anywhere with or without anyone.
It’s a love affair but it’s also with ourselves, and we’re too easy to stand up. Writing together is a way of announcing our commitment to ourselves – and a way of being a beacon to others. Writing together we show each other how we do it, give each other the strength to do it. Writing is the kid sister of storytelling – she who is now and will always be the mother of the campfire, the blaze of wonder in the dark, the secret low voice, the terror and the joy. Writing longs for that ancestral fireside. The writing rooms give her – and you – the warmth that was first sparked in the places of long ago beforenow time. It connects us to the eternal line of storytelling.
Magic. Powerful. Accessible.
“Virginia Woolf said “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction”, two essential ingredients to be sure, but, nearly 100 years later, I would argue that there are two more to add to that list – time and community.
In 1927, writers weren’t having to juggle their writing with a 40 hour work week, or the incessant pings of a mobile phone, or even doing their own laundry. Having an hour every Tuesday that is carved out particularly for writing, and knowing there are others there in the exact same boat as you, has been invaluable. It’s made actually getting the ideas that have spent years swimming around in my brain out of my head and onto paper infinitely more possible than it was before, and I’m very thankful to have a group of people there with me.” Anna Delves
