"Writing is a love language."

On being in creative community

Creative community fuel gauge = full.

This was one of those weeks that rapidly passed me by, leaving me exhausted come Friday.

Despite its tiring nature, with zero time spent writing until today, it felt like, dare I say, a turning point in my creative resurgence.

I found myself surrounded by more creative company and conversation than I think I’ve ever had in a regular routine week before. And it felt incredibly nurturing.

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Tuesday I had the last session of my writing class on unblocking writer's block. This class felt a lot more impactful than my essay class due to its in-person nature, the humorous and freeing atmosphere our instructor

Michelle Kicherer

created, and my first exposure to writing fiction. I was a little bummed for it to end, but didn’t expect the last class to feel remarkably different. Much to my pleasant surprise, a couple of my classmates brought Martinelli’s and homemade brownies to our last class. After they poured us all a glass of bubbly, another student made a small toast - “to our adventures in writing!” It was such a simple but meaningful gesture that put a nice seal on the eight weeks the eight of us had spent together.

I’ve also never laughed so hard in a writing setting. We spent the bulk of our last class doing the exquisite corpse exercise, a telephone-like prompt in which every person contributes lines to a story without knowing the full context that came before it. It started by each of us writing a follow-up passage to a different introductory sentence given to each of us on a piece of paper. After the time was up, we'd pass our paper to the left, when the next person then had to write something to continue the story along. They then fold the paper to hide the lines from the person before them, so that each time the paper is passed along, the next participant sees only the lines of the story written by the person directly preceding them.

The end result is a series of haphazard stories constructed in the spirit of playful collaboration. In the case of my class, ours contained coincidental mentions of trampolines, local drag legend Darcelle, and bodily matter that probably wouldn’t be as funny to an external audience. But those of us in the room were dying of laughter, tears coming out of my eyes at one point. Even our instructor said she'd never laughed so hard in a class she taught. This exercise, and really the whole class in general, taught me how silly and fun writing can be if you allow it. What a gift!

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Thursday my budding writer’s group officially kicked off the ground with our first workshop session. Two of the six women in the group submitted excerpts of their novel drafts for the rest of us to review ahead of time and provide feedback on when we met.

Rather than jump straight into the feedback-giving, we spent the first hour of our ~two-hour meetup simply chatting about creativity and our lives. It was so energizing and inspiring to sit in creative community with like-minded writers, sharing triumphs and struggles, and gathering so many recommendations along the way that I filled an entire page in my notebook. I think this was accelerated by the fact that our group is an international one, contributing to the richness and authenticity of our conversation.

At one point, our fearless facilitator

Aoife

remarked that “writing is a love language.” It was such a beautiful statement that I immediately wrote it down to reflect on later.

We were discussing the fact that writing has the power to make us feel seen. It's a vehicle, in other words, for creating empathy and relatability and reminding us that we aren’t alone in our lived experience.

Upon hearing those words, it suddenly clicked why I love greeting cards so much. Anyone who knows me well knows that I love to pour my heart into a written note, expressing gratitude for my friends and loved ones. Receiving such a note in return makes me feel immediately loved and seen. I still remember years ago when my brother, who had previously dismissed greeting cards as a waste of paper and money that he immediately threw away, decided to write me a heartfelt note for my birthday after I had told him why handwritten cards carry meaning for me. I was so touched, and to this day he still gives me handwritten cards (his version constructed from scrap paper that inspired me to do the same for him).

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Saturday I got to meet my dear friend

Lauren Scott

in person for the first time. Thanks to Substack we forged a bond over this platform well over a year ago. Having known we live a mere three hours apart, meeting up IRL one day seemed obvious, but it did take some intentionality to make it happen.

Unsurprisingly, the hours flew by while we chatted about all things writing and our personal lives. Unlike the usual norms of making a new friend, where you spend the first bit of it with small talk and learning the minutiae of one’s lives, we could cut straight to the soul-level connection due to the amount we already knew about each other.

It’s experiences like these that remind me how beautiful a place the internet can be. I am so grateful for the fellow writers it has introduced me to and look forward to (hopefully) more weeks like this one.

Author’s Note: Happy Mother’s Day to all the mommas and aunties in my life—you all are amazing! 🧡 It’s fitting that earlier this week, my boyfriend’s stepdad made the observation that my writing voice seemed similar to my mom’s. While I'm certainly trying to develop my own unique voice, his comment made me realize that I have my mom to thank for my early aptitude for writing. A journalism major, she spent the bulk of her career working in public relations and never said no to helping edit a paper, resume, or presentation of mine. I owe my appreciation for grammar and editing to her, and I love that we both have created our own spaces on the internet. She recently started

Manzanita Connections

, a newsletter for happenings in her small town community, when she noticed a void of information and created the space she wanted. I’m so proud of the work she’s doing!

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