Mindful Writing Marathons
Mindful Writing Marathons
Stop thinking, write, read, write, read, repeat
One of the writing craft books that has been most influential in my life is Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg. I wrote about it here:
In it, she talks of running writing marathons at the end of the courses she teaches to free ourselves of writing inhibitions and access our inner voices. I am now running my own version of these.
What is a mindful writing marathon?
My version is a 2-hour Zoom meeting where we have timed writing sprints. We start with 10 minutes of writing then we have 10 minutes of reading out what we’ve written. But we just listen and don’t give feedback. Reading out is optional and depending on how many people are at a session we’ll rotate who reads.
We keep alternating between writing and reading out for the entire time. For the first writing sprint I’ll provide a prompt to get you started and then in the following writing times you can either continue writing to that, respond to something that someone else has read out, or start something new from the next prompt.
“Not commenting on another person’s work builds up a healthy desire to speak. You can pour that energy into your next round of writing. Write, read, write, read. It is an excellent way to cut through the internal censor and to give yourself tremendous space to write whatever’s on your mind.
What usually happens is you stop thinking: you write; you read; you write; you become less and less self-conscious. Everyone is in the same boat, and because no comments are made, you feel freer and freer to write anything you want.”
— Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg
How much does a Mindful Writing Marathon cost?
FREE - to all paid members of The Mindful Writer.
£20 - for non-members. Book here.
When are they happening?
27th October / 14.00 - 16.00 GMT
16th November / 11.00 - 13.00 GMT
15th December / 15.00 - 17.00 GMT
19th January / 13.00 - 15.00 GMT
Further dates will be confirmed soon.
I hope you can join me to make a deep and mindful connection to your writing practice, and have a lot of fun!
With love,
