Tea and fury
I'm starting a six-week guided support group for women+ who write (or who aren't writing but wish they were)
I woke up this morning with the Muse straddling my chest and shaking me by the shoulders. WAKE THE FUCK UP, she hollered in my face. IT’S BAD OUT THERE, LET’S MAKE SOMETHING!
Ok, ok, I said, but first, tea.
Ah, tea. Cold fingers, warm cup. A wake-up shot to the brain. I always drink more of it when I’m here in England, and then I forget about it when I get back to North America. Note to self: drink more tea, you love it!
Anyway, I spent the entire first half of the day in a creative tornado of hyperfocus, and now I have made the thing my Muse wanted me to make. I’ll tell you about it in a sec, but first, a brief word about the feeling that inspired it.
I know I’m not breaking any news here, but the world is a really scary place right now. I can’t pick up my phone without tripping over some fresh horror that somehow eclipses the horrors of the day before. It’s shredding my nervous system, yet I find it hard to look away. Life feels like a speeded-up doom scroll.
Everybody I know is out of sorts.
We are doing our best to keep our heads up and our hearts open. But much as we put a brave face on it, we are feeling beat down, angry, and scared.
We are devastated by what’s happening and afraid of what it means for ourselves, for our kids, our communities, and the rest of the world. It’s hard enough to find time for simple pleasures: growing a garden, getting a good night’s sleep, enjoying our fucking peace. Also, we are bone tired and our joints ache.
How are we supposed to lean into our creative potential at a time like this?
I need to tell you this, and I want you to really take it in: Making art is not a pastime, or a self-indulgent luxury. Creative self-expression is more important, not less, in times when freedom is under assault. Why do you think every fascistic regime cracks down on writers and burns libraries? Because true words spoken in a good way are that powerful.
Making art is not a pastime, or a self-indulgent luxury. Creative self-expression is more important, not less, in times when freedom is under assault.
And this: Writing is not just for elites. It isn’t even just for “real writers”. It is an egalitarian mode of communication that belongs to you, and you belong to it.
Writing is a treasure map of your inner landscape. It is an intellectual gymnasium. It is an anti-depressant. It can be, as a coaching client said the other day, a bridge to action.
But please don’t think I’m suggesting that we should all be penning political manifestos, or even writing self-help books (which I publish and personally owe my life to.) All forms of writing, from kids’ books to poetry to fantasy novels, have the power to comfort us and ground us in our shared humanity. And if all you intend to write is a personal diary that will never be read by anyone but you, let me assure you that kind of writing can be the most impactful of all.
So, if you are dismayed that the future currently looks bleaker than we expected it would be, and you want to keep your heart soft in a hard-ass world…
If (like me) you’re spending way too much time on Instagram and YouTube and it’s making you feel like a meth head; if you’d rather be writing love letters or bitter poems, or a tender step-by-step guide to holding body and soul together during the apocalypse, or an erotic thriller about space zombies, or anything at all, for god’s sake…
I have an invitation for you.
I believe we all need a safe place to open those parcels of fury and despair and grief we’ve been carrying, a place where we can bury them in magic soil that will turn them into the richest creative compost.
And wouldn’t it be great if that it was a slightly witchy place, where we can sip tea in a circle of like-minded souls and blow on embers of hope together?
If you long for a place like this, where we can nurse the poor, wounded baby birds of our lost innocence with eyedroppers loaded with love; a place to summon the powers of the child you once were and the person you thought you’d become before all this shit happened…
Then come join me this Thursday for the first official meeting of The Furies, a six-week guided support group for women+ who write, or who aren’t writing but wish they were. (Women+ is my way of describing a woman-centered space that also warmly welcomes our trans and nonbinary siblings.)
Ok, so what is The Furies, exactly?
It’s not a classic writer’s group or a class, and it’s not group therapy. It might be something in between.
My vision for The Furies is that it will support each of us (including me!) in dismantling, brick by brick, the wall that stands between us and our full creative power. Those bricks can be emotional—unworthiness, fear of criticism, etc—or they can be practical, like struggling to find the time to write. They can be mental, like difficulty choosing a project and staying focused on it, or they can be relational, meaning maybe you just need some encouragement from people you trust.
We will meet every Thursday for the next six weeks, starting this Thursday, July 24. The start time is 10am Los Angeles time, which is 6pm here in the UK.
Each week, I will lead us in a meditation and share a practice or writing tool that can help you tap into your essential self and bring it to your writing. You’ll have a chance to share your creative challenges with the group if you want to, and I may also do some live coaching. At the close of each session I’ll share a writing prompt that we can take into our personal practice in the week ahead. Oh, and we will drink tea. :)
You only need to register once to get access to all six sessions. You can come for as many or as few as you like. At this point, I’m not planning to record them. They’re live and private, and that’s part of the magic.
Also, I’m offering this free of charge, although donations will be gratefully accepted.
Sorry, guys, it’s limited to women+ because that’s what my heart tells me it wants to be.
Why we need this club
Here’s the thing. The ramping up of patriarchal control, racism, and toxic end-stage capitalism that we are living through, and our modern way of life that glorifies rugged individualism over collective support—these forces are powerful disruptors of our mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. It’s no wonder we’re feeling unmoored, from each other and from our creative potency.
We may have swallowed the lie that our art only has value if somebody pays us huge sums of money for it, not realizing it’s the making of it that has the power to heal us.
We may have forgotten that we are social animals who need safe community to thrive, that there is strength in numbers, and that being witnessed in our truth—whether by each other or simply by ourselves on the page—is the surest path to reclaiming our peace.
Register here: bit.ly/furiesclub
Spread the word.
Bring a mug of tea, or something stronger.
See you Thursday.
Publish your book with Wonderwell Press
I am no longer personally running Wonderwell Press now that it’s an imprint of Greenleaf Book Group, but I am still its Founding Publisher, which means I get to select which titles go into the program.
Do you have a finished manuscript or work-in-progress that you want to get published? Looking for editorial and marketing support from smart, experienced publishing professionals?
True to the imprint’s founding mission, our focus is on nonfiction books that help, heal, and inspire. If this describes your project, submit your project to Wonderwell Press below, and your book could be in stores by this time next year.