December
December has arrived. Three weeks to the longest night. We are descending into a darkness that we seek to light up with strings of bulbs and candles and trees in windows. Bodies and minds exhausted, we hope we can make it to Christmas. The imposition of a workplace model that doesn’t let up, makes no allowances for weather and its effects on mood, is draining us. It is at times like this that we are most likely to let go of the practices that ground and sustain us - with bodies stirred into the urgency of survival, slowing down and taking care feels…not impossible, simply ungraspable. We forget, because our gaze is focused on that moment in a few weeks time when we can actually stop.
Writing at such times can be either a balm or a burden. When I was in HE I had always given up by this point - the mental energy required to shape words and construct new ideas was gone in a flurry of teaching, marking, travel, suitcases, poor nutrition, lack of exercise. Functional living only allows for functional writing, like emails. These days I have a little more capacity to keep writing, but it is slow as sludge, pulling words like recalcitrant weeds. We cannot divorce ourselves from nature - the systemic issues are real but so is the lack of light. Our brains’ evolved to respond to shorter days by producing melatonin, storing fat, seeking warmth. Read - we are sleepier, heavier, slower in winter.
When we fight the natural rhythms of our bodies we push ourselves toward burnout. But the longer nights of winter give us time to reflect too, to listen. I have slowly been realising there is more than one kind of writing I can do in my practice, and that there are times when some forms are easier and more appropriate than others. My book writing has ground to a halt - I simply don’t have the mental capacity to research and write with clarity whilst also running my business and doing a training. I’ll be honest, I struggle with the idea that I can’t simply keep going - an atavistic instinct, dredged from years at the bottom of the academic pond. Did I tell you about the job interview when I was told my failure to publish whilst in a f/t teaching post made me unemployable?
I still feel it. But but but…
Writing is not one thing. Part of the flatness, the brain drain of this time of year, is the way we have emphasised a singular mode of writing for eleven months. All of the importance given to a certain kind of output. You cannot always move in one direction and remain healthy - your joints and muscles need variation, rotation, stretch and strength. The brain is the same. Force it along the same pathways over and over and when your energy is low you will find there is nothing else available.
The winter slowdown offers an opportunity to reconnect with this truth. Tiredness and turning it, less time and energy, subtle shifts in mood and our sensory perceptions - these realities lend themselves to other forms of writing. Poems. Microessays. Blended and interwoven narratives. Fragments. Podcasts. Photoessays. Stories. The many alternative pathways we reject when time seems tight and deadlines are oppressive are precisely the kinds of writing that can rejuvenate our exhausted minds in winter. Writing only for ourselves, as well - reclaiming words as things that heal and hold for us when our lives feel fragile and ready to fall.
I have been noticing the different types of writing I want to do and love to do, and seeing them differently this week. The book, I realise, is firmly part of my work. I was reminded today by two supportive friends that they want to read it and to give it to others, that it is a subject that might have an impact in the world. Such writing is complex and effortful because it needs to be clear for the reader. It takes time. There is other writing I do as well, words that are flowing more fully in this season because they are mine - personal, affective, nature-led. So I start to understand that whilst the book needs time made for it within my working hours, this other form of wordsmithing belongs elsewhere. I have been trying to juggle them both at the end of the day, and finding that writing for me always wins. They need distinct time and space, they have different methodologies and processes. I am excited by the idea that I can do them both, and they can feed into one another.
Slow Writers Club launches this week, and our theme is Sustainable. Sustainability is premised on the appropriate, measured use of resources, of working within our constraints. If winter offers a constraint to us, instead of fighting against it can we lean into it and what it offers? The chance to slow down, to stop rushing and driving forward, an acceptance of variety as our source of strength.
The Slow Writers Club is here!
Join me and other slow writers in a safe, supportive community space dedicated to investing in deep work and sustainable writing. The Slow Writers Club meets monthly for a two hour co-working session with writing prompts, discussion and coaching. Between monthly workshops you’ll have the opportunity to respond to a prompt here on Substack, either privately or within the community. Slow Writers is open to anyone who wants to find time and support for their writing practice, whatever that looks like, hosted by me. Membership opens in January for £10 a month, but you can join us FREE this Thursday at 7pm for December’s live session. Just head over to The Slow Writers Club to subscribe and get access to the zoom call.