First Steps to Writing
When I ran my big social organisation London Village back in the 70s I found that the best and the most supportive environment by far for a meeting was in the home. I remember some members protesting that their homes were inadequate, not tidy enough, too small, I can only have four people etc but in fact with informal seating they could cope with about eight or ten and sometimes more. London Villagers who volunteered warmed to it very quickly.
Official meeting rooms are far too stuffy and pubs are more noisy than you might think.
We met once more at our home. We love our home. We have built up an atmosphere of welcome and caring and I’m sure these thoughts and feelings get in the walls and people feel comfortable. You can have buildings that will use as prisons centuries ago and the atmosphere is still dreadful
Respect of Privacy
During the event the question of privacy came up and it needs to be addressed.
When you write about something that is sensitive to you there can be a certain amount of pain associated with it. This needs to be acknowledged and respected. When we put something to paper that has not been expressed before it can be a traumatic process so we will as a group separate the content, which can be personal, from the process, which is of general interest to all.
It’s up to me as the organizer to be flexible and responsive.
I write this in case readers are thinking of attending a meeting. Many of us have what we can call ‘skeletons in the cupboard’. You may have something in your life that you are still – after all these years – very embarrassed about. On the other hand you may have events in your life that were worthy of celebration and you want to share this. I don’t think there’s the opposite analogy of the skeleton in the cupboard. (joke)
I asked those present to write a few sentences about what their life experiences were and we had an interesting mixture of relationships, memories, lifestyles, activities that gave great pleasure…. all the sort of features that we are so familiar with.
I then printed out the material and read it back to the person who wrote it so to give it an element of objectivity and in the examples that we heard it was obvious that these were authentic starting points for what could be a very good novel or autobiography.
We are all unique in our writing motivation
With writing there are as many ways of starting to write as there are people.
It is becoming clear since I started this group that discipline and steadfastness is required to crank up a mental engine. We have the facilities in our mind/brain but if they have not been used it will take some effort. It will take some time before writing becomes instinctive. That’s just the way the human mind works.
Use it or lose it is not a judgment it’s just a fact
I started to write following an accident in 2016 where I fell back of a terrace and cracked five ribs and ended up in hospital for a week. Some of us said that we had so many good ideas in our heads and some had jokes which we would love to have published at some point.
I said that when I write my diaries I write them from myself and get pleasure from looking at the stats and seeing in which parts of the world people discovered my diary and read it.
In the past I have bought diaries and never actually added anything to them and only seriously started when I became familiar with computers and particularly with speech to text dictation.
I think of Samuel Pepys who wrote with a quill pen and wonder how he managed to write 1.25 million words is amazing. He kept his diary over 10 years so that’s 125,000 words per year.
I told people that they must only do something if they feel like it and suggested that they keep a notebook and jot topics down which might be particularly important and worth developing.
Writing should be a joy
Writing should never become a chore but a joy, a bit like painting a picture in words .
We heard life histories that were fascinating and stories of great courage when people felt they had to change their style of life without knowing exactly where they were going and why. We had real life examples in front of us of a wing and a prayer.
In general, from looking at people you can never imagine that they have had such interesting lives. I never get tired of listening to people’s stories. Authenticity does it for me.
If it is authentic it is special. I look forward to many more sessions like this
PS We have produced flyers which are available to hand round to friends. Please ask if you would like some.