Starting the day with writing

During lockdown when we were all looking for outlets to put in a chink in the monotony of our days, I heard about London Writers Salon. Which is a bit of a misnomer now, as people take part from all across the globe. But it’s true that it started in London, with a couple of friends who wanted to provide a space for the writing community during those uncertain days. On the first day, 9 writers turned up, by day 5 there were thirty, and it has grown from strength to strength ever since. People write together for an hour at 8am every morning to encourage one another to put words to paper. I thought I’d give it a go and, fast forward a few years, I’m still a regular attendee.

So, what is London Writers Salon (or The Writer’s Hour as it’s also known as now) and how and why does it work? On a normal day, between two and three hundred people sit in their little zoom boxes (today, as I type this, there are 265 of us) tapping away or writing long hand on their individual writing projects. The sound is muted so we’re not distracted, but before this happens, we are given a warm welcome by two hosts, who are often rotating (and they all somehow feel like friends now – if I were to see them in the street, I’d give them a big hug). We type into the chat what we’re working on and then one of the hosts shares a motivational quote.

Here’s the quote from today from Graham Greene:

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation. I am not a religious man. I don’t believe in God. But I believe in the power of writing. It is the only way I can confront the things that make me suffer. It allows me to understand, and it is an escape from the pain of things I can’t control. I write because I have to.

And then begins fifty focussed minutes of quiet writing before we type into the chat how we got on and one or two people are invited off mute to share what they’ve been working on. The idea during this hour is to avoid distraction; the hosts say every single day that we can write or we can do nothing. We can stare out of the window (often an important part of the creative process), we can drum our fingers on the tabletop, we can look into the middle distance, or we can write. And even though we are all spread out across the globe and nobody is going to know if we quickly check our email or Facebook, somehow I never want to, I want to stick to the task I’ve been set. After all, it’s only fifty minutes and there is a shared accountability that connects us, that says: we are here to write. (Though I must confess that occasionally I do get caught up in deciding what music to listen to which is a perennial problem for me – hmmm.)

Before I start writing, I have a very quick flick through the screens and chose someone at random to pin to my screen and pretend I’m writing with them. I look at their faces, the background of their room and their clothes and imagine what kind of person they are. I send them silent good wishes to all their hopes, dreams, fears and whatever it is that they’re working on and then I get down to the business of writing.

I cannot express how much I have got done over the past few years during Writers’ Hour. So many poems have been written, so many stories have been polished, so many words have been added to my manuscript count, so many of my creations have been submitted to literary magazines, to websites, to agents . And even if I don’t manage to pen a single other word during the course of the day, if I begin the day with Writers’ Hour, it feels hugely satisfying.

At the end of the session, we leave with a one-word check out. Invariably, even if I start the session in a fog of exhaustion (thank you, chronic insomnia), I end it feeling lighter and more resolved to get on with the rest of my day. I also love hearing about the work of others and the variety of projects people are working on, from morning pages to a sticky middle section of a poem to working on reports and dissertations to putting the final flourish to a novel.

If you’re interested and live in a different time zone, amazingly The Writer’s Hour has four sessions a day that are held at 8am London, New York, Los Angeles and Auckland time zones. There are all kinds of online gatherings, events, workshops, challenges and competitions as well which I mostly haven’t been able to get involved with. There’s even a podcast. But if I do find space for more of this, I know where I’ll be going.

Click here to find out more about this incredible resource and community for writers, and a huge, heartfelt, writerly thank you to the founders, Parul and Matt.

Thank you for reading this blog post. Compliment it with an account of how one special friend reads me novels on WhatsApp in installments & a reflection on the curious world of waiting which I’m in again now, that twilight zone of having sent out your book and you’re just waiting to hear back.

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