Getting into the Creative Groove, Group Edition

I’ve been pulling some all-day writing sessions. With a group of equally ambitions fellow writers, we have been writing all day long deep in our creative groove.

We start writing in the morning and go until the evening or other engagements pull us away. For better or for worse, we are in a cafe so we have access to coffee. The chairs aren’t as comfortable as the ones we have at home. We don’t have control over the temperature (although the cafe owner has been known to bring out a fan for our table as well as an extension cord if we forget ours).

But as we sit at the table and open up our documents, we all wonder why we are so much more productive in a group than we are in our own individual spaces.

It isn’t synergy, in the sense that we work together to create one thing. It’s more that we are collectively creative and collectively disciplined.

A friend of mine, her writing can be classified as snowballing. In the first twenty minutes, she might get into the double digits with words. In the second word, times that by 4. Third war? Times is by 6 and keep writing! She basically snowballs her words. Some days, the numbers grow so fast, by so much, we call it avalanche writing.

In group writing, we start with varying abilities to discipline ourselves. But once the first hour approaches, we can get lost in our words for an hour, no issue. Renew parking and go again, this time for an hour and a half without really looking up. We are in it to win it, each fighting our own battles of the same war.

Growing up, I thought writing would be the most introverted activity ever. But, honestly, I get more fulfillment taking up the pen with others facing the same struggles as I am than I do when facing my blank pages alone.

Alas, sometimes, we are very chatty and we need to get our writing troubles off our chest. Ultimately, someone cracks the whip and we buckle down again.

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