A Whole School Year of Writing Practice Begins Next Week!

Hop on for Zoom office hours TODAY @ 4:30pm EST to learn more about Ebb & Flow

“Deadlines and things make you creative.”
~ Jack White

Oh man, do I feel this. I may resist it – I DO resist it – but damn, deadlines work wonders. Without one, I am pretty squirrelly. For instance, I just emptied the dishwasher and then got sucked into Jack White's Wikipedia page. Did you know he almost went to seminary to become a Catholic priest but decided at the last minute to go to public school instead because he didn't think he'd be allowed to bring his new amp to seminary?

Self-imposed deadlines can be good, but they are slippery buggers, and wily, too.

The best kind of deadlines, in my experience, involve other people. When someone is counting on you to show up, to complete, send, or respond to something, it's much harder to wriggle your way out of it and scrub the bathroom sink with an old toothbrush instead, or start your online holiday shopping four months early, for example.

Not that I do those things ;)

Before the pandemic, the vast majority of my writing groups took place here on Facebook, without any "live" component. A few years ago, at a time when many of us really needed to SEE and HEAR each other, but couldn't do that easily if at all in person, I began offering Zoom-based groups.

Now, we are in what feels to me like yet another strange time. Not quite during, not like before, but also not after, either, as Covid continues to shapeshift and impact our lives. We have "returned to normal" as the saying goes, yet there is still a collective loneliness now layered onto the all-American busy-ness that can overtake our lives and hush our creative impulses.

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Without deadlines, and without community, it can become all too easy not to bother writing at all.

This fall, for the first time, I'm beginning a Zoom-based group that will run through June 2024. The rhythm of the "school year" will always live in me, and so this year, I decided to run with it.

It's called EBB & FLOW.

On Tuesdays (beginning September 12), we will meet on Zoom for 90 minutes. We'll meet three weeks in a row, then have a "rest" week.

The rhythm of the three weeks "on" will be:

✍️ For the first of each three weeks, we will bring "11s" to share.
✍️ For the second of each three weeks, you'll work on a longer piece that expands on something you discovered in your 11s.
✍️ For the third week, we will simply write together "in real time."

Then a “rest” week, and we begin again.

The group size will be capped at 11 people.

Read more about / register for the group here:
www.jenaschwartz.com/ebb-and-flow

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OFFICE HOURS TODAY

If your writing and life and spirit and creative practice could use a regular dose of friendly deadlines and even friendlier community this school year, join us!

I'll be holding office hours TODAY 4:30-5:30pm EST on Zoom.

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/4919406703

Hop on anytime during that hour if you have questions, want to chat, and see if this group is the right kind of deadlines for you in the next 10 months.

Hope to see you later!

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