Write With Me Club: March

The theme this month is writing trauma

It’s been so wonderful to see my postcard project taking shape this week. For those who missed it, I sent out 18 postcards to my paid subscribers, each with their own individual writing prompt and an address to send their creative replies to. Some of them have been landing this week, and I can’t wait to see what people do with them.

Milli Hill wrote about receiving my postcard this week in her round-up The Nosebag, I really recommend you check it out.

The great thing about writing to someone you don’t know and who doesn’t know you, is they you don’t need to restrain yourself as a writer, you can write close to the bone, into the bits that are usually hard to reach — I recommend those who are currently pondering on their writing prompt do this.

It’s not easy to write into those vulnerable places, as those who read my piece about the braided essay will have noted this week:

I am deep in my grief at the moment of losing Wendy, my friend, my writing partner, and I’m in this strange place of wanting to pay tribute to her with beautiful words, and yet trying to find them still, trying to process, and putting myself under pressure to get it just right. Of course writing helps to process, it takes that tangle that we have in our heads and irons it out. But it’s not one straight line to get there, and that’s what I thought we could explore this month in our theme: writing trauma.

Now this trauma could be anything, it might be the loss of a loved one, it might be loss of a marriage, it might be the letting go of a part of your life. It is whatever trauma means to you today. And that might not be the same as tomorrow, or indeed yesterday.

I am currently reading Hagitude by Sharon Blackie. The subtitle is: Reimagining The Second Half of Life. And just like her brilliant piece on The Psychology of Midlife, it is all about moving on from feelings of grief of what you’re letting go of (youth) and embracing what’s to come (stepping into empowerment).

That is what I believe writing trauma gives you, an ownership of a story that had ownership of you, getting it down, letting it go, and stepping forward into the next phase of life. In other words: empowerment.

Hanging onto the past whether that’s a person or the way things were is unhelpful. Somebody sent me this excerpt from a blogpost Wendy had written on how to deal with grief this week, and honestly it was like receiving an instruction from her on how to process this loss I’m feeling right now:

I know that many of the people who follow me came via Wendy, and so I am sure they will too find comfort in this wisdom of hers. Tomorrow night at my Write With Me Club we’ll take some time to talk about Wendy and the three books we wrote together, because that was her way of processing trauma after all, of taking a diagnosis of a progressive illness and turning it into something empowering – and just look at what a difference she made to others by doing that.

Perhaps there is something you want to write that might do the same?

Tomorrow at midday I will send my paid subscribers the zoom link to join tomorrow night’s meeting, so that’s 7pm-8pm GMT Monday March 4th, around my kitchen table to talk all things writing trauma.

Upgrade here if you would like to join us — there is a great saving to be had on annual memberships at the moment:

I very much hope to see you there.