My Eastside Writing Room group is not meeting in person these days. Sheltering at home because of the coronavirus, we have lost the energy of collective writing together around a table. But we have committed to continue to write. We write at the same time as we would be meeting. Being a people person, I miss the physical and emotional connection that comes with being in a group. So visualizing us writing at the same time is an amazing and helpful concept for me.
We of writing groups in this time of the virus are not simply writers in isolation; we are writers-in-solitary-residence. It’s just that our residence is not a cozy cabin up in the woods, or out among pine trees by a lake, or on the edge of a red rock in Sedona, but in our own living room or dining room or at a desk or on the patio in Tucson. If it’s Tuesday 11:30 AM-1:30 PM MST, we’ll be writing. Feel free to write with us. Contact me with your intention of what you will write about and then email again to let me know how you did.
( With thanks to Pat Bean for this clever transformation of isolation to residence association in her recent blog. )
Ethel Lee-Miller blogs regularly about people, the power of words, and the writing life. She’s retired from professional writing gigs and workshops after 30 years of teaching, coaching, editing, and gathering writers to publicly share their work. She is the author of Thinking of Miller Place, and Seedlings, Stories of Relationships. In retirement she’s writing to connect with folks, and for the fun of it, and sharing stories at Odyssey Storytelling Tucson Tellers of Tales, and anywhere there’s a mic.
