Writing Time & the Angel with a Flaming Sword

“Waiting for the muse” is how many of us start our writing lives. We wait for inspiration to strike, then rush to the page. At that stage, the idea of planning to write feels workaday, even distasteful, a betrayal of an enraptured state.

I believed in this approach, sincerely, for years. It just doesn’t really work. Stories peter out. Novels inch along so slowly that we’ve outgrown them before they’re halfway through. Poems are rare as hen’s teeth. And as adult responsibilities build up around us, it gets even less viable.

I thought it was impossible to write at set times. It’s not: it’s hugely inspiring. I thought it was unromantic to have set writing time. But I found a new romance: writing time is the Garden of Eden. And like the Garden of Eden, it needs an angel with a flaming sword to protect it.

The truth is, writing will never be urgent – not unless you get a two-book deal, and you have to put in a lot of non-urgent time to get to that point. Meanwhile, the rest of life is clamouring with urgency. So it’s up to us, and only us, to prioritise our writing.

This isn’t about “should”s and all those ghastly shouldn’t-you-be-writing memes. Writing is play, a joy, a delight. We do it because we want to. I believe in never setting plans or goals based on “should”s: drill down from the “should” to find the “want to” within it. If you can’t find any want-to at all, is it even worth keeping that plan? If you do want to, then like a relationship, you can commit to it and set clear boundaries for that commitment. Because you want to.

And the best commitment you can make for your writing is writing time: to set, protect, and use the time.

Setting the Time

Setting the time means calendar time. Block the time off in your calendar; talk about it as a fixed calendar plan: “I’m writing on Thursday evening.” When the time is, and how much time, is completely up to you. Some people work well in small sips: one of my students catches the bus to work half an hour early and writes in a coffee shop opposite. Some people (me included) can’t concentrate with other tasks rapidly approaching and need a swathe of time: the whole of a weekend morning, or all the time from finishing work until bedtime on Tuesdays. Some work best early in the morning, while the world’s asleep. Some (like me) are stupid blinking owls in the morning, but can write on into the evening. Some people like to write every day; some don’t. Set the time that works for you.

Once you’ve set the time, keep checking in with yourself regularly, to see what’s working and what’s not. If it’s not working, don’t just blame yourself: dig into why it’s not working and see how to fix that. If you’re too lonely to lock yourself away that evening, then your writing time needs to be when you’re already socially topped-up. If dinner prep stole two hours of writing time, then look up some quicker or batch-cooking recipes. If you felt despondent and uninspired because you had PMT, consider writing around your cycle. If you were too overstimulated to settle into it, think about ways to soothe yourself, like spending time near water.

And if all the adjustments still fall short, check if your plan is realistic and fair. For ages, I tried to write two evenings a week, and consistently only managed three evenings a fortnight. Eventually, I deduced that with the best will in the world, that was how much I could actually fit in, so I changed the plan: three evenings a fortnight.

As I explained in Writing Habits Are Like Punting, it’s about gentle continuous course correction, not Big Pushes. Bit by bit, tweak and adjust when, how often, and how much time works for you. To start, I suggest you check in with yourself weekly. Take five minutes to look at what worked, what didn’t, and what you can tweak.

When you have your writing time, the rest of the time is not writing time. This is equally transformative. So many of us live in a constant fog of “I should probably be writing” guilt, which in turn sours our relationship with writing. Deciding when we’re not writing means we get to look forward to writing and enjoy all the rest of life in the other time. No more guilt.

Protecting the Time

Once you set the time, everything comes rushing in to try and steal that time. It’s like blood in the water for time-hungry sharks: chores, work over-running, interruptions, tiredness, overstimulation, even very lovely people and people you dearly love.

That’s why you need to protect the time like an angel with a flaming sword. As Lucifer says in the TV show, “the Flaming Sword, the weapon that guarded Eden, the weapon that can cut through anything, even the Gates of Heaven itself,” – yes, that sword. Or to continue the Lucifer metaphors (I’m watching it for the first time and just love it), like the scene where Amenadiel has to block the hospital door to save Lucifer’s life, and remain completely immoveable no matter what. We’re writers; we’re storytellers. Go mythic with your metaphors; go Gandalf “You shall not pass”; whatever works for you. Remember what I said at the start: writing time will never be urgent. It’s up to us to protect it.

Keep checking in with yourself, reflecting, and adjusting. Keep looking for practical solutions. Did work overrun? Well, if your writing time is earlier in the week, work doesn’t have a chance to overrun yet. Did people interrupt you? Maybe you can write somewhere they’re not. The more you practise protecting the time, the better you get at it.  

Using the Time

My complete saying is, “Protect your writing time like an angel with a flaming sword and within the time be free.” Once you’re inside the writing time, there’s no clock-watching, list-ticking, word-counting. I think of it as a clock without hands: the time is contained and protected; inside, it’s timeless. You are under no pressure to use the time as productively as possible or to be efficient. Writing doesn’t respond well to those, anyway. The measure of good writing time is time spent writing.

Time spent writing doesn’t even have to mean you produced new words: heaps of valuable writing activities make no difference to our word counts. If there are writing-things you need to do “before you can write”, like research, brainstorming, plot musing, character invention, etc, do those in your writing time. They’re part of the writing. So long as you’re protecting the time from all non-writing things, you can use it for any writing-y thing at all.

To make it easier to use the time, and to stay inside the writing time, think about your writing space and sensory cues.

Your writing space

Lots of people find it easier to write away from home, especially if they’re responsible for the bulk of chores and mental load of home. Plus being away from home means that you stay in writing-space even when your concentration span lapses and you need a break. See what your area has to offer: cafés, pub gardens, community spaces, libraries (if you’re in Oxford, we have lots of libraries available), etc. In good weather, you can write outdoors in parks and meadows.

If you’re writing at home, set up your writing space so it works well for you. Maybe it needs tidying and decluttering, maybe nicer lighting. If it’s the same space as you work at, how can you change it up? (In my twenties, when I worked from home and home was a single room, I switched on fairy lights, lit a candle, and sat on the opposite side of the desk, for writing time.) The same way you’d make an effort with the space to delight someone you fancy, for a date, make it special for your writing. And part of that is..

Sensory cues

Sensory cues make it so much easier to slip into writing headspace, and into flow. A writing playlist. A candle that smells of freshly-cut grass. A mug of Lapsang Souchong, which you only ever drink when you’re writing. An age-soft sarong thrown over the table. The side-lamp and the fairy lights instead of the big light. Think about sounds, scents, textures, lighting.

Whatever sensory cues work for you and your space, use them whenever you’re writing, and only when you’re writing. As the association builds, they become more and more effective as a shortcut into your writing state of mind. I’ve been using that writing playlist since 2020, never playing it unless I’m writing or rereading my writing, and at this point it activates me like I’m a sleeper cell. Music on: Megan writes. Choose your sensory cues and let them develop with time.

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Writing time is your Garden of Eden and you’re the angel with a flaming sword. You’re not on your own with this, though – the obstacles, the need for practical strategies, the delight.

Want more writing advice? In The Writers' Greenhouse Community, you'll get expert advice on tap, help developing your writing, and the chance to connect with your writing community.

Find out more and join here.

Happy writing!

Write by Hand if You Can

Before I launch in, a big caveat: write by hand if you can. If you can’t, don’t even bother reading this. I vividly remember a phone GP telling me in 2016 to “go for more walks” – clearly missing the bit on my notes that I needed a wheelchair to leave the house. No-one needs to hear the benefits of something they can’t do. So if that’s you and writing by hand, read The Joy is in the Doing instead!

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Still here? Then I’m assuming you can write by hand, so here’s why you should!

Why writing by hand is such a wonder

The research I used to quote on this showed that people wrote faster, better, and more by hand than typing. But that study looked at children and was in 2009. We’re adults and we’re even more digital now. So should we still write and plan by hand?

Yes! This 2025 research round-up shows an astonishing array of benefits:

• You process information more deeply.
• You retrieve memories better.
• You’re more creative.
• You can regulate stress better.
• You’re more mindful.
• You draw out more nuanced feelings.
• You increase your agency.
• You increase your focus.

Exactly what we need for stories, especially novels, and poems: full focus and concentration, a clear memory, creativity, subtlety. Everything we want from and for our writing: immersion, mindfulness, a sense of agency, a flow-state.

(Btw, that article’s written in a weird “Well done you for being a Better Person” way, but you don’t have to be Already Superior, you can just write by hand more and enjoy the benefits.)

And this 2025 study, The Neuroscience Behind Writing: Handwriting vs. Typing—Who Wins the Battle? found that “Handwriting activates a broader network of brain regions involved in motor, sensory, and cognitive processing. Typing engages fewer neural circuits, resulting in more passive cognitive engagement. Despite the advantages of typing in terms of speed and convenience, handwriting remains an important tool for learning and memory retention, particularly in educational contexts.”

Writing by hand has other practical benefits, too:

• You can write anywhere. Leave your work desk and write somewhere else in the house. Leave the house, if chores / people are distracting, and write in a coffee shop or pub garden. If the weather’s lovely, write outdoors. (My Tips for a Summer of Writing has heaps of suggestions on that.)
• You escape digital distractions. Paper has no incoming notifications. No tempting buttons just a click away. No thesaurus, search engine, or (heaven forefend) genAI as a flow-stopping crutch for every momentary doubt. It’s just you, the ink, and the paper.
• You can’t word-count. Word-counting is the enemy of focus and flow: it takes you from the joy of doing into measuring the worth of writing with a ruler. When you can’t word-count, your focus stays inside the writing itself.

The immersion, joy, and focus of planning and writing by hand transforms the experience. I bloody love my laptop, but it’s not for composing on. I will hammer through my inbox on the keyboard, for speed and convenience, but for poems, stories, even this blog post, I pull out my pen.

Your pen

You absolutely need a good pen to write by hand, but that doesn’t mean forking out a fortune. As I wrote in my Top Ten Tips for Students, ballpoints rely on friction to pull the ink out, which is why they tire your hand so much. Fountain pens don’t use friction: they just glide, and they don’t have to be expensive. With the pricy ones, you’re often paying for a brand name and a more expensive case: even the cheap ones have perfect nibs. I use a £10 Helix and it’s a dream. 

If you’re left-handed, try fineliners or gel pens. To test a pen, hold it lightly between two fingers and drag it gently across the page. If it leaves a clear line, it's a good ’un: it doesn’t need friction to work.

Your paper

What you write on is completely up to you and will often vary from project to project. For novels and short stories, I write on A4 lined paper, which I staple together as I go. For extended freewriting or poems, I use hardcover Paperblanks or A5 notebooks, which fit in my handbag. (I like a hard cover to press on.) People with pockets often like Moleskin journals, as they fit easily and comfortably into pockets.

If you use notebooks, make sure they’re ones you’re not afraid to use wantonly. I used to stick to “Black n Red” notebooks or the plain-coloured WH Smiths ones, as the pretty ones felt too special to use. These days, whenever someone asks what I want for my birthday or Christmas, I say “A hardcover Paperblank notebook, just a bit bigger than A5, with lined paper, ideally one of the Medievalish designs”: I now have plenty, so I can use them fearlessly!

If it’s an artisanal notebook, make sure the paper is hot-pressed. Often, handmade and craft-fair notebooks use cold-press paper: the fibres will catch on your pen and the ink will bleed. Apart from that, write on whatever's easy for you to write on and to carry where you want it.

Typing up

You want digital versions of your writing, of course. You can type up whenever suits you. You can type up when you’ve drafted a scene, then print it and redraft or edit by hand, or write the whole story then type it up. You can use typing to warm you up at the start of a writing session or for low-brain parts of the day. (I have a 4pm brain-slump I often use.) You can plan your typing around your hormonal cycle or moods. Whatever works for you and your process.

Just as you want a pen that doesn’t hurt, you want a typing-up arrangement that doesn’t hurt. At minimum, that means putting the handwritten text vertical: use a recipe-book holder or balance it against a heavy jar with a crocodile clip and cardboard to hold it in place. If I have lots to type, I also raise my laptop with a couple of thick books, so it’s at eye level, and use a separate keyboard at desk level, for maximum ergonomics. When I was too ill to sit up at my desk, I contrived a cunning armchair arrangement with a lap tray, side-table, recipe stand, and a very thick book.

You can make your typing-up easy and enjoyable, too:

• Put on a playlist. It’s entertaining and also helps with the rhythm of typing. Ideally, a playlist with no vocals in a language you understand, so the words don’t distract you. I love it as a chance to listen to all the music that I’ve still got stashed on iTunes which I can no longer carry about with me.
• Hide the screen distractions. Switch off any notifications and switch to full screen, so you don’t see that familiar task-bar with all its workish associations. In Word, you can also hide its distracting bottom bar that keeps counting words, pages, etc, so you can just focus on typing.
• Type fast and free. Change your settings to not underline any spelling or grammar errors. Switch your autocorrect on and let it autocorrect misspellings. Don’t backspace if you misspell something: just do a spell-check at the end.
• Add your own autocorrect shortcuts: I have dozens of these now. Pa = pirate accordionist. nihs = New Inn Hall Strait, and so on. As well as phrases you type often, you can add your own regular spelling mistakes: my most common one is “catpain” for “captain”.
• Make templates and shortcuts for easy layout. You can follow my techie tips to make your own or download my templates for novels and stories.

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Writing by hand and then typing up may seem like a waste of time when you “could’ve just typed it in the first place”. But when the writing itself is faster, easier, richer, and more joyous, when you can hold onto so much more of the story, be more creative, and write with so much more nuance, when you can write anywhere, when uncapping your pen becomes stepping into flow, it’s so, so worth it. 

What's more, when you discover how much more freely you write by hand, how much more you  produce when you’re focused and in flow, you realise this actually is the faster way. As so often, the scenic route of the path of joy ends up much more efficient than the “efficient” way.

And yes, I did write this by hand!

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If you want to dive into writing by hand and you’re looking for a regular practice or a notebook project, the 30 Days of Writing will be just perfect for you: inspiring writing guidance for poems and/or flash-fiction (very short stories), to use daily or at whatever pace suits you. Including suggestions for how to manage the word-count of flash-fiction when you’re writing by hand!

You can start here and try the first three days for free. Happy writing!

 

Writing for Wellbeing

Writing is a quiet wonder for mental health. There’s a reason so many teenagers dive into writing journals, diaries, and poems, during those years of so much hormone-and-identity upheaval. As we emerge into adulthood, though, we mostly ditch that. We forget what a wonderful help it can be, and we think everything we do has to be “good”.

Here’s a secret: writing can be good and good for us. Sometimes turn by turn; sometimes at the same time. Sometimes just good for us and we turn it into something good later.

I’ve written here before about how much writing can help our wellbeing. In The Wheelchair and the Cushion of Art, I described how it’s helped me navigate heartache, depression, and living with a chronic illness. In The Joy is in the Doing, I wrote about how process-focus brings back the joy (and the productivity!) and how I wrote myself back to health from a massive stress crisis. You Are Not Ark Fleet B explored how during the pandemic, everyone took refuge and respite in the arts – the films, TV, books, music, that helped us hold on: ”We can call it respite. We can call it mental health. We can look to the physical health benefits of easing stress, and how much that heals, how much it wards off. We can look to the societal benefits of not going berserk with cabin fever…” And why “even if no-one ever reads what you write, society is better for you writing.”

That’s because writing is amazing for wellbeing.

• Writing gives us respite. Whatever we’re dealing with – stress, heartache, grief, anxiety, illness, crisis, or even high-octane brain-fizzing excitement – we need a break, so we can be strong again tomorrow.
• Play, creativity, and flow-states protect us against stress. They literally physically protect our brains, and help us grow new neural connections, so we can respond more flexibly.
• Writing helps us process things. Instead of staying stuck, writing can hep us move through the emotions and thoughts, and emerge from it.
• Making something supports our sense of self. Crying on the sofa because you’re in so much pain that you can’t even put a ready-meal in the oven sucks. Writing a poem about it doesn’t get the ready-meal in the oven, but now you’re someone crying on the sofa and someone who’s written a pretty spiffing poem. And where the emotion is, there’s also a poem or story there now, as a container to help hold the emotion.
• Writing offers us free self-expression. Our full, varied, and wild selves can emerge on the page. That’s especially useful when our inner self feels constrained by work, by public face, by caring for others first, all the things that adulthood requires of us. From the page, it can even creep more into the world: a freer more playful sense of self.

All of this is good for us, and good for those around us. We’re not being selfish or indulgent by taking time to write. How much better, for our partners, families, friends, colleagues, even people who cut us off in traffic, if we’re rested, unstressed, flexible, able to process our feelings, and whole in our selves? (And it’s easier to ask for help with the ready-meal if you’re not a snapping resentful ball of rage. IME.)

Writing’s not a cure-all or a replacement for all mental-health support. After years of writing a poem a day, when “the blue curtain” kept cropping up, I finally booked therapy for my medical PTSD. Six sessions of EMDR therapy sorted that out, but its presence on my notebook pages took it from the shadows to booking an appointment.

Writing is an amazing power tool in our tool box. So here are my best tips for writing for wellbeing, from an amalgam of research, my experience, and my students’ experiences.

• Write by hand if you can. This has so many benefits that I’ve written a separate blog post about it.
• Don’t wait to feel okay – do it anyway. The same way we don’t wait for a headache to pass before we take a painkiller, you can sit down to write joyfully, grumpily, relaxed, or stressed. It still works.
• Make it a little treat. You don't want to drag a notebook onto a table cluttered with breakfast dishes or open another document straight after work for yet another chore to tick off: treat yourself a little. Sit somewhere you like, make your favourite drink, maybe put some music on. Take yourself out for coffee in a café or pub garden, if writing outside your home helps. Whatever modest effort makes it nicer, even if that's just putting the dishes behind you where you can't see them!
• Drop your standards. This is always true for writing: we need to let ourselves write badly and go for quantity over quality, not so we churn out rubbish, but so we let ourselves experiment. You can still develop as a writer, try new techniques, and write amazing stuff that way. You’re more likely to, if you’re not rigidly demanding perfection from every word. It’s even more important to drop your standards when you’re writing for wellbeing. In that stress-state, I literally muttered “Doesn’t matter if it’s shit,” on repeat while I wrote. The measure of good writing time, here, is time spent writing. Stun your inner critic with “Doesn’t matter if it’s shit,” and just write. That’s where the flow lives. It might turn out good later, but let it be rubbish now.
• For fiction, don’t write about you. The more clear blue water between you and the main character, the easier it is to step through the magic doorway into writing-land, as I wrote about in The Characters That Let Your Stories Fly. Try out new characters, new genres, new approaches: variety breeds joy and creativity. It will always be self-expression, because it’s still you writing, the self will out, but of a much freer kind.
• For poems, mix between you and not-you poems. Sometimes you need to blurt or to shape acidic little ditties about exactly what you’re experiencing and feeling: that’s healthy and good. Sometimes you need to take a break and write about spores: that’s also healthy and good. As with stories, the you still emerges; the self will out. My spore poem ended up actually being about my tenuous relationship with hope and a disappointment I feared. It was a stronger poem for being ostensibly about spores, and when the disappointment came, I had the exact poem I needed.
• Try poems with formal constraints: syllable counts, rhymes, metre, specific end words, a refrain to work in, and so forth. Something marvellous happens when you’re excavating a grief but also counting syllables: new objectivity, a you inside and outside the feeling.

In early 2020, I was planning a series of thirty daily Poem Skills to coincide with national poetry writing month (NaPoWriMo) in April. When the pandemic hit in March, I redesigned it to support mental wellbeing, to help people find respite in calm absorbed flow, and ran it on the blog for free. I took all my experience of writing for wellbeing and made sure every topic offered people somewhere interesting, relaxing, or uplifting to put their minds. (The other things we need to express will emerge when they need to – like spores.) I alternated between poems with formal constraints and free verse (with optional forms), for the best of both worlds. I got so many lovely private messages from people who were finding, as I did, how much writing helped. In 2023, I ran it again, inside the Writers’ Greenhouse Community, this time adding flash-fiction (very short story) options in the same spirit of discovery, fun, and mental wellbeing.

And I’m thrilled to offer it to you now: reworked, spruced up, and expanded, as 30 Days of Writing. Whether that’s 30 days in a row, or every few days, or whatever works for you. It’ll teach you loads about poems and stories, because it’s me who made it (I’m a teacher: the self will out), but the sunlight flooding it all is writing for wellbeing. Because writing can be good, and good for us, and a joy.

So if you’re looking for something to write, or an added regular practice, and especially if you want to write for wellbeing, you can start here and try the first three days for free.

I hope it brings you joy, peace, and delight.

Tips for a Feedback Writing Group

This post is specifically about writing groups to give each other feedback. I have a general post on writing groups including other kinds here.

A writing feedback group is absolutely transformative, both for you and for your writing. As I said in my Top Ten Tips for My Students, other people can do something we can never do for ourselves: tell us how our vision is coming across on the page. We know the effect we want to create, but we need other people to tell us the effect they’re experiencing: how characters are coming across, if a poem is clear or inscrutable, and so on. Bouncing ideas off other people also works better than working alone. We solve other people’s creative dilemmas more easily than our own, and in return, they can do the same for us.

The group helps us, as well as our writing. Having readers and feedback is motivating and keeps us going when we hit a hurdle or a dry patch. If we’re having a bad word day, or struggling with a plot problem, we know we’ve got people to ask for help. And we’ve got companions, in the strange wild worlds we invent and the strange wild process of doing that, who also know what it’s like, celebrate our steps forward, hug us when we cry. (And when we finish a first draft, they’ll throw a party instead of asking “When can I buy it in the shops?”! They get it.)

For all of this, we need a consistent, long-term, suitably sized writing group, which can read each other’s work over time and build strong bonds. We need to trust them, because we’re showing them the early drafts, the imperfect work – even if we’ve got it as perfect as we can make it on our own. They can only give us the support of bouncing ideas if we feel safe asking for help. Having them as readers is only motivating if we feel this is a good place to share our writing.

So here are my suggestions for how to assemble and develop a group like that, some extra feedback tips especially for writing groups, and how to find those lovely people in the first place.

Assembling a group

Who’s a good fit

In my experience, having the exact same level of experience and the same genre isn’t that important. Different genres teach each other good things and a mix of poems and fiction can also work well.

What matters most is...

• You read each other’s genres / forms, even if not devotedly.
• You have a similar-ish level of output.
• You have a similar level of commitment.

Practicalities fit

The basic practicalities are just as important: for the group to last, it needs to fit well in our lives.

• Are you looking for an online group or in person?
• Do you want to be geographically close? (Eg ours meets online but we keep it to Oxford so we can also meet up socially in person.)
• How often do you want to meet? Once a week? Once a fortnight?
• What times and evenings work? Agreeing a set day is much easier than trying to juggle multiple calendars, which often leads to a group petering out. Our group sometimes shifts for a term, because of my teaching, but then we stick to the new day for that term.

Group size

4–5 people is a really good cohesive size long-term and means everyone can get feedback each meeting. That said, groups often shrink for all sorts of non-bad reasons (babies, job changes, evenings available shift, all sorts of Life Stuff), so it’s fine to start larger.

Developing a group

Agree the rules

Having clear rules up front helps prevent a lot of social stress and potential frustration. The rules should cover:

• How much you can send in each time. Our group has a 4000-word limit.
• When it’s sent by. We’ve recently moved this to the weekend before, to accommodate work schedules.
• How many is quorum to meet if various people can’t make it. (For us, quorum is two.) This also helps prevent the calendar-juggle, which can lead to petering out.
• How long to spend on each person’s feedback. 20–45 mins is often good, depending on how much people are submitting. Allowing too long can be unhelpful, as people start trying to find extra things to say. I find that 20 mins is great for 2000 words; 40–45 for 4000. We put the person getting feedback in charge of watching their time, so they can move the discussion on if they need to.

You can always adjust the rules as you need to – eg if someone’s finding the word-limit too high, and struggling to read everything, you can discuss it in the group and change the rule. But having clear rules makes everything smoother.

Allow time for chitchat and social meetings

This is essential for bonding, to build that trust and relationship: ruthless efficiency doesn’t build bonds. It’s important to respect everyone’s time, so the group stays viable long-term, but also to allow 5–10 mins to chat at the start, and a bit of space to chat between people.

High trust, high honesty

This is something that builds. Our writing is close to us, dear to us, and something we’ve made. So sharing it is quite vulnerable, especially at first. I’ve got lots in my Top Ten Tips for Giving and Receiving Feedback about how to approach feedback well, and some extra feedback tips below, to help with that.

The other aspect of high trust is to be honest with your group about where you’re at. If you’re feeling fragile that day, they need to know. If you need extra buoying up, tell them. That doesn’t mean they say anything false (that’s unhelpful) but they remember to prioritise the stuff that’s working well. Everyone in my group has, on at least one occasion, burst into tears. And this is an incredibly safe very bonded group! Not because anyone was cruel, but because the person getting feedback was overwhelmed by whatever else was going on. Sometimes we don’t realise that until we’re crying and then it’s, “Wah, sorry, this is kinda about where I am right now, not what you said.” We’re all allowed to be vulnerable, hence being honest, and trusting.

Celebrate!

Part of being a group is celebrating each other: if someone creates a chapbook of poems, or finishes a short story, or the first draft of their novel – rejoice with them and celebrate with them. Sometimes (in fact often), they’re struggling to celebrate at that point, so rejoice for them, throw celebration at them!

I love cooking, so I love making a dinner party based on the food in someone’s story: I had enormous fun devising nettle pies with vegetarian hot-water crust and a fey foraged salad, for one. In January 2026, when I finished a huge rewrite, my group threw me a pirate party, complete with menu and decorations based on my story’s world. (I’m not the only cook in the group!) For someone else’s completed first draft, we had a lunch out at her choice of spot and ordered custom LEGO mini-figures of the characters in her novel. We also have extra celebratory rituals – eg if someone submits the final instalment of their story, we give them the whole session for feedback, just them, with plenty of time to go through “yellow bits” (phrases / words we’ve highlighted as especially good).

Whatever celebrations, rituals, and festivities work for your group, celebrate each other.

Extra feedback tips

Absolutely read my Top Ten Tips for Giving and Receiving Feedback: there’s heaps of essential detail there on these ten tips:

• Ask questions
• Say what's good
• Say what could be improved
• Listen and consider
• Feedback should help people write more
• Think growth not talent
• Set time and length limits
• Be careful who you ask for feedback
• Avoid group-think in writing groups
• Have multiple feedback sources

Different patterns emerge when we work together over a long time, so I have five extra tips specific to longer-term writing groups.

Don’t worry about spoilers

Your writing group is so you can help each other: share each other’s worlds, spot the things you can’t, be a source of motivation and encouragement, and so on. So you need to share what you have with them, for them to do that.

It’s fine to try avoid spoilers, when you’re trying to work out how something plays out, but in the end there are inevitably “spoilers” – when they’re seeing a rewrite of a chunk, or you’re working on a full redraft. That’s where beta-readers come in: they can see the much more polished draft (thanks to your group) and answer those questions. Your writing group helps you create and improve it, so they need to see what you’ve got.

Offer problems not solutions

That seems wild but it’s the right way round. We’ve spotted something that’s not working for us in the poem or story. It’s in our remit to say what’s not working, and why (ie exactly where in the text we’re getting that from). But it’s not in our remit to give the “fix”.

The writer knows their own work much better and once they understand the issue, and if they agree, they’ll have a wider repertoire to draw on for changes. (In a 2014 FantasyCon Editor’s Panel, the professional editors said the same.) In fact, jumping in too quickly with our own ideas can stymie their process: before they’ve had a chance to think, we’ve already sent their thinking a particular direction.

Similarly, never lead with just suggestions. It might feel like flagging up the problem is “negative”, so we start with the suggested fix. To them, without the problem being identified, it feels like we took a perfectly fine story or poem and started trying to write our own on top. If they want suggestions, they can ask or we can offer.

A few years ago, when everyone was getting too excited about suggestions and new ideas, and overwhelming each other, our group instituted a “no suggestions unless asked for” rule. We absolutely still ask for and offer suggestions. Bouncing ideas around and getting advice from each other is a beautiful part of the process. It’s wonderful when a group stepping-stones their way to a perfect fix: one identifies the issue; another suggests a fix and flags up an issue with the fix; a third uses that to suggest an alternative that works; and so on. But we need to keep really clear boundaries on that and make sure, at every stage, the writer still wants ideas and isn’t having them rained down.

Before giving suggestions, ask:

• “Would you like a suggestion?”
• “I have an idea for how to resolve that, if you’d like.”
• “Do you want more ideas at this point?”

And if you don’t want other people’s ideas at this point, you can say:

• “I’d like to think about it more myself first, thanks.”
• “Actually I’m fine for the moment.”
• “I need to process it on my own a bit first.”
• “Thanks, but I think I’ve got plenty to explore.”

It’s fine not to give all your feedback

It’s the writer’s job to say what they want feedback on. We need to answer what they’ve asked, ask if they want anything else, and stop there. It doesn’t matter how brilliant our edits were if they didn’t ask for edits.

The temptation to give exhaustive feedback is always there, and only grows stronger when we get more invested in each other’s work. We’ve got great ideas! We’ve got very useful edits! We love the piece and want to make it better! We need to resist that temptation. Exhaustive feedback breaks people. Remember the original Tip 5: Feedback should help people write more.

Beware the “Actually, now I think about it...”

It wasn’t an issue. Some of us flagged it as something we liked. But now we think about it, as the conversation goes on, it’s really a problem actually? And maybe they could do this, or that, or the next thing… And increasingly, the suggestion would throw their story or poem out of kilter, tone, voice.

This can be a result of allowing too much time for feedback, so we scrape for more to say. In a long-term group, though, it also crops up as a result of good bonds. Agreeing with each other feels good, in a group! And we need to beware of that, in our writing groups. (That’s the original Tip 9: Avoid group-think in writing groups.)

It’s fine for someone else to pick up on something we didn’t and for us to agree. We can just say, “I didn’t notice that, but I agree.” If we start extemporising on it, having only just thought about it, we risk creating a pile-on.

We’re the readers

As we get more engrossed in each other’s stories, and feel deeply invested in them, it’s easy to start speculating “what a reader might think”. But they’re testing it on readers, right now, right here: we are the readers of their poem or story. In a past writing group, we had this exchange:
“A reader might be confused by X.”
“Were you confused?”
“No, not at all.”

We don’t need to hypothesise readers: we are the readers. Likewise, if we’re seeing a rewrite, we can’t be a first-time reader and guess what they might think – that, again, is where beta-readers come in.

The only reason we forget we’re the readers is that we’re so engaged with each other’s work, and that’s beautiful. In fact, all these extra tips come in to play precisely because it’s a fantastic, long-term, supportive group. And that’s what exactly what we need, to know our writing’s effects, to bounce ideas, to motivate each other, to ask for help, and to enjoy the company of other writers!

Finding your people

So where do you find people to create a group like this? The best way is to meet other writers, in person or online – a chance to chat to them, live. That’s one of the reasons I create as many opportunities for that as I can, in everything I run.

If you’re in the Writers’ Greenhouse Community, you have the chance to chat to each other in the monthly Writing Boosts and to follow up those connections in the online group chat. When I run online workshops, including the freebies, I always include time to work together, to meet each other. If you’re in Oxford, everyone’s welcome to the Summer Drinks, plus the Summer of Writing workshops are fantastic for meeting other writers and chatting about writing.

And in the multi-week courses, whether online or in person, you really get to know each other well – pretty much every course I run goes on to create a writing group for those who want one and don’t have one yet. Some of them now running for years! You can see all the live courses here.

May your writing group be a joy and a boon, may you help each other, trust each other, and celebrate each other. And happy writing!

PSA: Don’t Use AI In Your Writing

More specifically, don’t use AI in your stories or poems if you want to get them published. (And even more specifically: by “AI”, I mean “generative AI”, aka Large Language Models – ChatGPT, Microsoft Clippy Co-Pilot, Claude, Gemini, etc. Obviously you’re not going to use a specialist AI that spots particular cancer cells to write, but it’s worth remembering that all those other kinds of AI exist.)

There are heaps of arguments about generative AI at the moment, but I don’t want to get into the weeds of all that. I just want to give you a heads up about this:

3 Lobed Magazine

Air and Nothingness Press

Arachne Press

Asimov Magazine

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Black Beacon Books

Clarkesworld

Cosmic Horror

Death by TBR Books

Horned Lark Press

Interzone

LBA Books Agency

Litro Magazine

Livina Press

Moss Puppy Magazine

Podcastle

Rogers Coleridge and White Agency

The Dark Magazine

The Fiction Desk

That’s not a cherry-picked selection. I check submission guidelines a lot – not just for my own work, but also for the Sending Writing Out list I keep updated for the Writers’ Greenhouse Community. Over the last few months, I’ve been seeing those notices everywhere. These are just the ones I happened to screengrab over a few days, as I updated my spreadsheets.

As you can see, no-one wants AI-generated writing. Not literary journals, not genre magazines, not agents, not publishers. Many don’t want you to use it for research and idea-generation either. Some even say not to use it for grammar checks. A couple years ago, I suggested using it for punctuation, which after all is a formal system, but we found that even with the strictest instructions not to change the words, it still did. And several places dish out lifetime bans for submitting writing that’s used AI.

To avoid using AI for research and ideas, I have a few tips.

Add “-ai” to your Google searches

That removes the AI summary at the top and gives you search results instead. I’ve found I get much better results when I remember “-ai”, and often they contradict the AI summary. Even when the AI summary gets it right, the pages written by actual human experts contain a ton more info that you might not have thought to research. Always, when we’re learning something, we don’t know everything we need to ask! The AI summary will only tell you what you know to ask.

Use the Writers’ Links trove of sites

I have a lovely curated list of very useful sites for writers, organised into Words words words • Characters • Places • Plot • World building • Historical research. It also contains lots of rangens, to help you come up with ideas. These are random generators using databases, not AI. Bookmark the Writers’ Links page!

In the Writers’ Greenhouse Community, every fourth weekly Writing Skill features a useful online resource, to help you explore these. I’m steadily adding all the sites I feature there to the Writers’ Links page as well. 

Remember Wikipedia

Free, vast, accurate, up-to-date, human-written, with heaps of info on every subject, and all its sources meticulously cited if you want to delve deeper. Ah, how times change, from "You can't trust Wiki!" You really can, now. Human passions for their specialist subjects have created the wisdom of crowds. Bookmark Wikipedia – ideally on your browser toolbar. 

Block ChatGPT & co on your server

Did you know you can block websites on your own server? If it’s your internet account, you can! If you struggle not to reach for it, that’s a lovely hard-core solution. And if you’ve been paying for ChatGPT, and you’re going to stop using it, what about slinging that money Wikipedia’s way, instead?

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I have many, many more opinions about this – of course I do, everyone does right now – but this isn’t about My Many Opinions, it’s just a PSA: don’t use AI in your stories or poems if you want to get them published.

Writing Habits Are Like Punting

It’s so normal, when we want to commit to new writing habits, to draw up a Dramatic New Plan and throw all our strength behind it. Especially at those new-start times of year: the September energy of a fresh academic year; the 1 January resolutions. You push hard. And then, come November or February, you find the New Plan’s already in tatters and you start berating yourself: Am I just lazy? Not committed? I need to try harder. Be better!

It’s normal. That’s what happens with those Big Pushes. And it doesn’t have to be like that. So take a lesson from punting.

That’s me punting with two of my cousins. A strapping lad of 17 and my ex-army cousin who climbs mountains for fun on the weekends. Punting’s basically pushing the punt along with a pole and they are way stronger than me. They should be shooting ahead. But I can leave them in my wake, punting.

They thrust the pole down, push with all their (considerable) might, hurtle the punt forward – diagonally, towards the bank. They hoik the pole back up – into the branches above. They stab it back into the river bed – now the punt’s veering into the brambles, the passengers frantically trying to flatten themselves. So the strong cousins jerk the pole round, biceps bulging to correct – but a punt is a long flat thing, and it carries on turning, so now they’re the ones heading into the brambles. They jam the pole down and push hard: there’s mud at the edges, which has gripped the pole. Punt shoots away, pole stays put, punter falls with an almighty splash in between.

Big Pushes in writing are the same. It’s not that you lack strength, energy, commitment – but if you use it like that, that’s how you end up in the water.

This is how you punt. Hold the pole out the water, vertical, and let it slip through your hands till it reaches the bottom. Gently, steadily, hand over hand, press the pole downwards behind you. You’re building gradual momentum, not trying to go from still to zooming. And if you’ve hit a pebble or rock, so it’s pushing at slightly the wrong angle, you notice, so you can lift and shift the pole before you’ve thrown your full force at it. One pebble doesn’t become a bramble incident. Or if you’ve hit mud, you can feel it, and twist the pole before you’ve jammed it too deep. One patch of clay riverbed doesn’t become a huge splash.

When your hands are down at your sides, don’t yank the pole up for another thrust: keep it in the water behind you, as much of it in the water as possible. Now it’s your rudder. If you pushed off at a slight angle, gently correct: the smallest of changes, because it’ll steadily keep going. Whatever you do keeps happening, so you just do a little, and watch. That ruddering is more important than how you pushed off.

Take a sip of cava as you float under the tree. Put your glass back at your feet. Lift the pole, hand over hand; hold the pole out the water, vertical, and let it slip through your hands… Each time, you refine how straight you push, and each time, you trail your long rudder, minutely correcting. And you glide smoothly, effortlessly, down the river.

And that’s how to turn your writing habits into a smooth effortless glide, too. It might feel like a Big Push will get you places faster, but only into the brambles and the water. Build momentum gradually, not in one Dramatic New Plan. Add to it bit by bit and push gently, observing the effects. Course-correct in small incremental changes, paying as much attention to that as you do to pushing. Pause as the branches float overhead – those tricky times, when any realistic friend would say “Mate, take a break” – knowing it’s safe to stop for a bit and your momentum continues. Refine, little by little, over time. And you’ll glide.

If you want to remake your writing habits like this in the year ahead, the Writers’ Greenhouse Community will help you refine them, course-correct, and steadily build momentum, till it really is that smooth effortless glide. Click here to find out how to join. And if you’re already a member, sign in here to start with your Trellising module and the next Writing Boost.

How Obvious Should I Make It?

In any kind of fiction writing, we need to manage our secrets. We want to hide the ending so it's a surprise, not a slow-moving inevitable train – but not such a surprise that the reader feels cheated. We want to tuck in foreshadowing, but not give the game away completely – or hide the hints so well that no-one even notices them. 

So how do we find the balance between making things glaringly obvious or playing our cards so close to our chests that the story doesn't work? How do you get it right for everyone? It can feel impossible. And it is impossible – if you think of "everyone" as a single monolithic Reader, for whom you want it to work identically.

Instead, write for three different kinds of readers: Smug Readers, Absorbed Readers, and Happy Lil Passengers On A Train.

Smug Readers

Smug Readers are going to guess everything. They're going to spot every hint, remember every clue, smirk knowingly at every red herring, and predict the ending accurately.

And they'll be pleased about being right! It feels like solving a wordle, a crossword, a sudoku. They'll feel proud, satisfied, and yes, very smug. Quite deservedly so.

Let them guess. Give them the means to guess. If you hide things so well that you confound your smug readers, they'll be disappointed, not impressed. And you'll completely lose your…

Absorbed Readers

Absorbed Readers will spot some things, but not everything. They're absorbed, so they're paying close attention, but they're also absorbed in the story, not treating it as a guessing game. They'll read the foreshadowing and remember it, but they won't always put two and two together. They might have vague suspicions, but no more. Then, when they reach the reveal, they'll exclaim "Ohhhhhh! So that's why… Yes, I thought there was something odd about that!" 

They'll be thrilled at having been so cunningly confounded, and satisfied that it all hangs together. And when they reread it, they'll sing your praises at how clever you were, setting it all up.

So put the foreshadowing, the hints, the clues, where they'll see them – actually there, on the page. In words, not in a cryptic form that needs a Brain of Britain contestant to work it out. But put it somewhere that they won't spot it immediately – in the middle of a paragraph, for instance, or in the midst of some exciting action.

It's easy to feel like these are our ideal readers. But you also need to cater for your…

Happy Lil Passengers On A Train

Happy Lil Passengers On A Train are cheerfully immersed in the story. They're not trying to predict the direction – they're on a train! They're staring out the window while the story-scenery flows by, taking every red herring at face value, missing every scrap of foreshadowing, not making a single guess. And when they reach the reveal, they. Are. Astounded. Amazing! Incredible!

Happy Lil Passengers On A Train don’t want to be guessing anything: doing that means stepping outside the story, which means losing the lovely total immersion. They want to be taken on a wonderful journey and reach their astonishing destination. And then they will be very, very happy.

This means that everything, ultimately, has to be spelt out. At the point where your Smug Readers have already guessed a while back, and your Absorbed Readers have just gasped at the reveal – at the point where you think any reasonable reader should know this, how can they not, ffs – at the point where you need them to know this for the next bit of the story to work – you need to make a Train Announcement for the Happy Lil Passengers. Spell it out. In actual words. State it clearly where it's obvious: at the end or beginning of a scene, even at the end or beginning of a chapter, so no-one can miss it. And then, like a Train Announcement, say it again.

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Instead of writing for one kind of reader, you're writing for three kinds, in turn. First come the clues and hints, which the Smug Reader will spot. Make sure they're there, on the page, so the Smug Reader has a chance: they want to guess right! Then a bit later comes the goose-pimpling moment of dawning realisation, when the Absorbed Reader goes "Ohhhh… Oh, I bet…!" And then, when the reveal is DONE and the story is moving on to the next stage, or ending, a Train Announcement for your Happy Lil Passengers, with a bing-bong at the start, which they absolutely can't miss.

Some people are predisposed to be one or another kind of reader, but we can all be all of them, at different points. Even the smuggest reader, curled up with flu and a book, turns into a Happy Lil Passenger On A Train. As long as you're catering for all three in turn, every reader, whoever they are right then, can enjoy it.

Want more writing advice? In The Writers' Greenhouse Community, you'll get expert advice on tap, help developing your writing, and the chance to connect with your writing community..

Find out more and join here.  

Am I Planning Or Just Procrastinating?

“How do I know if my planning is actually just procrastinating now?”
“Should I stop planning and start writing?”
“Is my planning just a writing-avoidance behaviour?”

I get variations on these questions a lot. So, first off: for those of you who prefer not to plan and just dive in and start writing – go! Be free! You're allowed to do that! You can do the plotty-planning stuff in your redraft stage. Work the way that suits you.

Those of you who like to plan, at least some, before you write: you're allowed to plan. Usually, when someone asks, “Am I planning or just procrastinating?” they do actually know which, in their heart of hearts, but a few fears or anxieties are clouding their clarity:

• “Writing has to mean words on the page.”
• “I have to perfect the plan / world before I can start writing.”
• “I can’t start writing in case I get the words wrong.”

“Writing has to mean words on the page.”

It doesn't. Planning is part of the writing. It doesn’t mean you’re procrastinating: it’s part of the process. Not all parts of writing produce word count. (Read – or reread – Word Count Is Like Paint to set yourself free from the word-count trap.) And actually, everyone plans. Some plan first, then write. Some write, then redraft / plan afterwards.

So ask yourself, honestly, “Am I still busy with the planning or am I just nervous to write prose?” Often, when I discuss this with students, it turns out that they are still busy with the planning; they're just feeling like they “ought to have started already”. So here's a reassuring bit of info: when I start a new novel, whether this was back when I was ghost-writing or now, the first quarter of the time I spend on it is planning. These days, that's often three months of two writing days a week.

It’s fine to plan for as long as you need to. But be wary of thinking that…

“I have to perfect the plan / world before I can start writing.”

You don’t need a perfect plan. In fact, you can’t have a perfect plan: you’ll always learn more about the story, the world, and the characters through writing. Once, I did create a “perfect” plan: with my second ghost-writing novel, I was determined to be more efficient and planned every detail, down to each scene. Writing it was hell: there was nothing left to discover, no creative leaps, just an endless colour-by-number with words. It was also the worst novel I’ve written.

You want to leave yourself room to discover, invent, and have exciting creative leaps and “Aha!” moments in the writing. Those are often richer than what you could’ve consciously planned, because you learn your character / world / story so much more deeply through writing it. And remember, the person writing the story always knows it better than the person who planned it – so the writer gets to change the plan.

Likewise, some conundrums and mysteries are best solved through the writing. Sometimes you need to trust the process and leave things open: “Yes, I'm including the giant octopus. I don't know why, but I'm convinced it’s important.” Sometimes you can't know until the end whether it’s is an important detail or not. You might end up taking the giant octopus out. It might be the whole solution to the end.

Your plan doesn’t need to and can’t be perfect. It just needs to be enough that you can start writing. How detailed that is varies from person to person, so you need to trust yourself to know. In order to trust yourself, you also need to be sure you’re not thinking that…

“I can’t start writing in case I get the words wrong.”

Both things can be true: you can be still busy with the planning and nervous to write prose. Putting words on the page  can be scary, especially if the page is very very clean and you feel like the words you write now are The Words That Will Stay.

If you’re still planning and you’re nervous of the prose, write snippets. When you're planning, sometimes snatches of dialogue or brief bits of scene just come to you, unbidden: grab some fresh paper, and scribble them down while they're coming. Tuck them in a “snippets” folder. It's glorious, reaching that scene and finding your hasty drafts already written. That way you capture it when it's fresh, you know you're not afraid of writing prose because you're doing it, and you're not hurrying yourself past an important stage in your process.

If you honestly think you have finished planning, at least as much as you can for now, and you're just tinkering in case the words come out imperfect: write imperfect words. Write it badly, and fix it later. Honestly, we do that anyway, whether or not we intend to, so we may as well give ourselves the freedom of intending to. Scribble all over that clean clean page, and set about writing, badly, knowing you'll fix it later.

We’re not musicians on stage, trying to get everything right in one performance: we get to work in drafts. Rough out the action and add description later. Or write two pages of description because you need to know what everything looks like, then trim and interweave it later. Chuck down the dialogue and add the action later. Use boring familiar phrases which you’ll switch up for fresh ones later. Write in drafts, in layers. Include octopuses you might take out later.

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Once you feel confident that you’re allowed to keep planning, that you don’t need a perfect plan before you start writing, that you can start writing alongside the planning, and that it’s fine to write imperfect first draft, then you can ask yourself “Am I planning or procrastinating?” And trust your own judgement.

If you want some help managing the strange mysterious process of planning, which can feel like mapping out mist, the Summer of Writing: Planning a Novel workshop will give you hands-on practical strategies, whether you’re starting from scratch or reworking raw draft. It’s in person in Oxford, full day, on Sat 9 August. Details and bookings are here; just 3 places left, so do be quick if you want to join it.

What's the Point of Description?

I’ve had some good teachers – in drawing, singing, running a business. Every time I find a good teacher, it reminds me of the difference between a taught course / curated resources versus just looking things up myself: they teach me the stuff I don’t know I need to know. Stuff I might otherwise ignore, dismiss, eyeroll at, or even actively refute.

Description is that, for most writers. Plot? Character? Dialogue? Everyone’s signing up to learn those. Description? I weave that in alongside the others, because I know you need it. Contemporary novels of all genres over 40% description, but so many people, avid readers of those novels, still believe description bogs things down and isn’t used so much these days.

So here are ten things all that description is doing.

It makes the story immersive. We live in our bodies; we experience the world through sensory information. That’s the info we need to feel like we’re living in the story.

It makes scenes memorable. Place is memory, as I’ve written about before. Do you want the reader to hold onto a particular scene or key information? Describe the place vividly.

It does your world building. Historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and travel fiction all hinge on a world that’s not the same as our own familiar environment. Everything you can describe – rooms, floors, food, clothes, scents, colours, plants – is giving information about your story’s world.

It creates mood and atmosphere. You want it darker? You want it creepy? Poignant? Vibrant? Intimate? Your description will create the mood in which you nest your action and dialogue.

It deepens your characterisation. Your character’s home. Their room. The pub they chose to meet in. The clothes they chose to wear, or are all they have. Every titbit of description here is a wealth of character info. Add point-of-view description from another character, and you’ve got a two-fer-one on characterisation.

It creates scene anchors. Are you interweaving story threads? Plaiting in sub-plots? Flashing back to the past then returning to the present? The rich description you seed in is the reader’s anchor for returning to that thread so they remember, quite literally, where they were in that story-thread before.

It creates action. Where your characters are limits or creates what they can do. Whether you’re writing epic fantasy, spicy romance, quiet literary fiction, or an action thriller, the place shapes what they can (or can’t!) do – so we need to know.

It paces your story. Need a beat for the reader to absorb what just happened, and really feel the ramifications? Want to draw out the building tension before The Thing happens – or doesn’t? Description is your pacing.

It’s the silence in dialogue. ‘They were silent for a long time’ doesn’t create a pause for the reader: it’s seven words; we skip right over it. A passage of description allows us to feel the silence, and whatever resonance that has in the scene.

It does your exposition. All that stuff you want to explain to the reader, for them to understand your characters, story, plot, world? A huge swathe of it can be woven in through descriptive detail.

With all that at work, it’s a wonder we can even cap description at 48%! We don’t give it all in one wodge, of course: we weave it in. Bringing the story to rich immersive life.

Want more writing advice? In The Writers' Greenhouse Community, you'll get expert advice on tap, help developing your writing, and the chance to connect with your writing community.

Find out more and join here.

The Paperclip Principle

Just as my students start to compare notes on an activity, I can hear the comments:
    “Okay, so this is awful.”
    “I’ve probably done this all wrong.”
    “Mine’s pretty rubbish.”
    And so on: a stream of platitudes / shittitudes.
    Sometimes I leap in before the comments; sometimes I interrupt the chats just as the first are emerging.
    “Right! Everyone! Before you go any further, I need to tell you the Paperclip Principle.”

It’s a simple principle: if you slag off your work, you have to pay me a paperclip. You’re allowed to say “I just did this in five minutes.” Everyone knows that, anyway; you’ve all had five minutes. You’re allowed to say “This is first draft.” We all know that, too. You’re allowed to say “I’m not happy with how this turned out,” “I still want to add more description,” “I’m worried my dialogue is clunky,”… You’re not allowed to say “This is shit.”

When I first came up with the Paperclip Principle, I was still teaching at one big round table, and there were occasional paperclips floating about, from my sheaves of handouts. When I moved house and started teaching standing up, with students at three different tables, I carefully kept my paperclips away from them, jealously guarded on my teaching sideboard. My students became ingenious. They’d bring in their own paperclip, to flourish as they slagged off their work; I’d grin and accept it as payment. They’d hand in writing for feedback knowingly paperclipped together instead of stapled. One student brought an entire box of colourful paperclips, which he presented to me at the door:
    “I think this will cover me for the course,” he said.
    I graciously accepted the box. “These are beautiful. Thank you. This counts as one paperclip unit, so you may slag off your work once.”

When I started teaching online, the Paperclip Principle became even more challenging: not only would they have to part with one of their own paperclips, but they’d have to get out an envelope, find a stamp, write the address, put it in the post. Easier, maybe, just not to slag off your work?

But it’s not easy, which is why we need the Paperclip Principle. It’s part insecurity and part cultural practice – that bit of our culture that says, “How dare you create something? How dare you be pleased with it? How dare you think it might be any good?” Even when someone isn’t insecure about their work, as soon as the shittitudes start flying, they swiftly join in, or at least hastily quench any excitement they were feeling. Embarrassed, now, by the group norm, to have felt that delighted flicker.

What a dreadful thing to do to ourselves. What a dreadful thing to do to each other. Specifically, it’s dreadful because:

It’s bad for your creativity

Think of your creativity as a three year old, I often say. Imagine a three year old excitedly picking “wildflowers” from the garden and running up to you with a “bouquet”. Would you crouch down in delight, thanking them for the beautiful bouquet of flowers? Or would you sneer and say “Why have you got a dirty fistful of weeds?”

And which response would mean you get genuinely elegant beautiful bouquets when that three year old becomes an adult?

Our creativity needs encouragement. Our early ideas are young: they haven’t had a chance to grow, yet; we need to cultivate them through enthusiasm, trusting that they’ll develop later. We need to praise our creativity and thank it. Not slag it off.

It’s bad for others’ creativity

As soon as one person starts slagging off their work, the others join in – or, as I said, at least quickly dampen their own delight. It’s not just our own creativity that we’re hurting: it’s the creativity of everyone in the room. And even beyond that room, it’s perpetuating the cultural practice that says “Don’t you dare be pleased at creating.”

It’s outsourcing our confidence

“So, I know it’s awful, sorry…”
    “No, it’s not, it’s amazing, you’re a really good writer!”

When we insult our own work, we also set up a little game: I insult my work; you rush to reassure me how marvellous it is. It’s a familiar game for anyone who’s been in the ladies’ loos:
    “I look awful.”
    “NO, babes, you look AMAZING! I look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards!”
    “Sweetheart! Darling! You look like a goddess! I look like something a fox dragged out the food caddy, covered in bin juice and onion peels!”

As soon as you start slagging yourself off, you’re placing a demand – an unfair demand, actually – on the other person to reassure you. That’s rubbish for them, but also rubbish for you. (Seriously covered-in-bin-juice-and-onion-peels rubbish.) Because even if their reassurance works, what then? You haven’t gained any actual confidence. Just an external source of it. And the day they’re tired, or down, or busy, or don’t want to play that game anymore, the floorboards open up beneath you. Because you just said “I’m awful,” and… no-one disagreed.

But you’re not awful. And that’s something you need to know.

*

If it’s so dreadful, why do we do it? It comes, as I said, both from insecurity and from cultural practice, the two intertwined, with the cultural practice rehearsing and reinforcing the insecurity. Strange as it may sound, insecurity is actually about ego. Ego doesn’t mean it’s arrogant: it means it’s focused on our perceptions of ourselves.

An unstable creative ego is prone to wild extremes. It says, “I’m brilliant! I’m shit! I’m a genius! I’m a fraud!” A stable creative ego says, “I’m neither brilliant nor shit. I’m making a thing that’s at a particular level of development, and I’m continuing to learn and develop. It’s not about me. I’m fine.”

That’s why all those other comments are fine:
    “This is first draft.”
    “I’m not happy with how this turned out.”
    “I still want to add more description.”
    “I’m worried my dialogue is clunky.”
    “I’m struggling with the focus of this scene, it’s feeling muddled.”
    “I can’t tell what’s working and what’s not anymore.”
All of those open the discussion to what needs development and what’s working well: the thing we’re making, at a particular level of development.

We’re always allowed to express uncertainty and confide insecurities. We want to be there for each other as writers, who share the weird and weirdly specific concerns that non-writers don’t get. We don’t want to force people to shore up our unstable ego, to model or perpetuate unhealthy behaviours, or to treat one piece’s development as a referendum on our worth as writers.

So how do we get there? We start with a small step: we start with paperclips. A few weeks into a course, after I’ve explained the Paperclip Principle, I start hearing,
    “Careful, Megan will make you give her a paperclip!”
    then “You owe us a paperclip.”
    then, simply a cheerful “Paperclip!”

The norm has changed. It’s not the end of the process, but it’s an incredibly good start. And each of these beautiful paperclips represents someone taking a step forward towards a more stable creative ego, and seeing their work as something to develop, not as a fixed brilliant/shit binary.

Give each other paperclips. Build trust. Model healthy behaviour and avoid perpetuating unhealthy behaviour. And be kind to yourselves as well as each other: this too is about steady thoughtful development.

You Are Not Ark Fleet B

In The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Douglas Adams describes an overcrowded planet whose inhabitants decided to relocate. They divided the population into three groups: Ark Fleet A, all the rulers; Ark Fleet C, all the people who did the actual work; and Ark Fleet B, the rest – all the middlemen, such as the telephone sanitisers, account executives, hairdressers, tired TV producers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, public relations executives, and management consultants. Ark Fleet B left first, to prepare the new home planet for the others, and… Ark Fleets A and C settled back into life, in a less overcrowded planet. Rid of the fluff.

At the start of the pandemic, we all got a fresh perspective on whose jobs to value. The bin collectors, the delivery drivers, the medical staff. With a cousin in the army, helping with logistics, and his partner a front-line nurse, I jokingly but sincerely referred to myself and my work as “Ark Fleet B”: the inessential fluff that an indulgent late-stage society has developed, which the planet and its people are better off without. I even named our group-chat that.

They were saving lives and keeping people alive. I was stuffing handouts in envelopes and arranging absurd stuff on a slice of wood on a lazy susan and filming it while I pushed it round with a wooden spoon. Spot the difference. I know a lot of creatives felt similarly.

But during that same period, everyone, including me, was turning to the arts, and specifically to immersive stories, to keep ourselves sane, to look after our fraying mental health, so we could all do the life-and-death essential functioning we needed to. At the same time as I was mocking myself as a pointless Ark Fleet B person, I was recording creative-writing audios for my students, creating a Poem-a-Day project that offered respite from anxious thought, filling my website with free writing resources, and advertising those instead of my courses.

I knew that writing helped people find a respite of calm, absorbed flow, which they urgently needed. Likewise, I was writing daily poems myself, as a constant essential practice to hold myself together. Likewise, my partner and I were mainlining stories in the evening: books, TV series, whatever could absorb us and give us respite so we could carry on.

When my army cousin and his nurse partner got home, shattered from what they’d been doing, rigid with worry – they also sought stories, in film or TV or books, so they could recover, so they could carry on.

When people needed poems for funerals, because they needed to say what this meant and couldn’t find the words, those were there too. Written by people who probably felt they belonged on Ark Fleet B, recommended by people who felt their knowledge of poetry was 100% Ark Fleet B candidacy.

The arts in general, and stories specifically, were a mental-health lifeline. People had made those stories. People who were probably also feeling like they belonged on Ark Fleet B. We can call it “escapism”. We can call it respite. We can call it mental health. We can look to the physical health benefits of easing stress, and how much that heals, how much it wards off. We can look to the societal benefits of not going berserk with cabin fever, not fighting with the only person you’re allowed to touch, not blowing up the new group-chat with stress-induced anger, not tumbling into conspiracy theories out of boredom-meets-helplessness-meets-terror.

This isn’t the indulgence of a late-stage society either, of people whose food is delivered in crates and whose refuse is carried away by trucks. Stories, poems, music, art, have been vital to every society throughout history, especially in the hardest times. They’re not the tip of our societal Hierarchy of Needs: they’re part of the foundation. All that’s changed is how we name the different ways that stories-poems-music-art combine, from cave art and bards to films, books, lyrics. It’s always been essential, and healing.

Your writing – you, writing – isn’t inessential fluff or indulgence. You’re not Ark Fleet B. You’re a healer. Even if no-one ever reads what you write, society is better for you writing. That strange half-hour of filming the Display of Curiosities left me calmer than I’d felt in days, which meant I could support other people and not crumble / start screaming / snap. If all it did was restore me, that was already enough to be a help to others. But it did more: it helped other people find that space, so that they could help others, and so on, rippling outwards.

The arts do so much else besides, but if ever you doubt, remember this: you’re not Ark Fleet B. Or A, or C. You’re more like trees: you help people breathe. Filling your leaves does good.