Welcome!
Happy Saturday, and hello to new subscribers! Today’s post is all about Hour Club. Every Monday at 7pm, I host an silent hour of focusing on your own work, alone but in friendly company. It’s very simple, but it really works!
I was 45k words through the first draft a novel when I started Hour Club with Polly. I have a busy job which inevitably spills outside of the normal working day but Hour Club is a guilt-free hour of focus and has proved very productive for me. I’ve bashed out over 700 words each time. Bad words, maybe! But something to work with. Being on a Monday it means you start the week in an extremely positive way and it’s had the knock on effect of leading to further focused hours on other days - even if it’s not quite the same without Polly & the gang silently willing you on. I had no idea that spending a silent hour with others similarly focused would be so motivating and can’t recommend it highly enough. — J, subscriber
I host the hour on Zoom from the deck of my boat. Being on or near water has been shown to bring calm and peace. Science! Every little helps when you’re trying to focus.
I’m working on the first draft of a new novel. Trying to write a comedy as a new departure from my usual darker, serious fiction. My previous really supportive writing group fizzled out during the pandemic. 😢 It’s so motivating to connect with other writers on a regular basis and it makes me write! I loved both of Polly’s previous novels and she’s great at facilitating the group …and it’s more than cool that she lives on a boat! — A, subscriber
How does Hour Club work?
Click on the link below at 7pm on Monday and you’ll be admitted to our space. We spend five minutes at the beginning of the hour setting our intentions. This is to help us focus on what we want to achieve — if you speak your intentions it helps you commit. Hour Club is not about teaching you anything, and you can bring any project at all that needs focus. A letter, a novel, something you have to get out of the way before you can write. It’s all good.
Then I put you on mute, read us a quote to help get us all going, and it’s silent work for the next fifty minutes. After this time, I bring you back and we catch up with each other on how the hour went.
It’s just a wonderful, productive space. I hope you will join us. No need to RSVP, just turn up.
Hour Club is a special benefit for paid subscribers. You can upgrade here! As well as bringing benefits, paid subscriptions support my work directly, and, friends, new projects are forming in my mind. I am so grateful to you all.
I am a retired midwife who has been writing articles concerning birth and midwifery for 40 years. I am now moving into writing fiction and I am studying creative writing at the University of Glasgow. My WIP is a feminist fantasy novel and now that I have a first draft, I value a shared space whilst I work as the novel was written in complete solitude and this new aspect helps me to focus. What I'm finding is that I feel supported - just like if I was part of a group meditation; the space is 'held' - becomes a vessel which allows confidence to grow somehow. Different to typical 'support groups', there is no need for discussions or sharing of work, simply a place 'to be - together'. I love it. — L, Subscriber
And finally…
Swan family outside my boat yesterday!