Writing Club #10 - Things Not Done

The Joy of Having Nevered

Dear One

Welcome to our final writing club of 2023. I hope this finds you creative and thriving in authentic, loving terms, even with the way the world is. Genuine creativity and art is one of the key ways to be a light of truth in the darkness. That is why art and literature are often so gentrified and denied to us in so many ways to keep the old order going. For our arts transform us and our world. Especially so as the old world falls, as we realise more and more that we are not just consumers, that we’ve had enough of these fuckers’ wars so that they can keep their degenerate wealth and power, all the while offering crumbs that we too can be just like them if we ‘work hard' or if we push each other down. Engaging with art and reading and writing, when met authentically, restores us. It is humanity's great vehicle for the expression and vision of who we really are. Writing is dangerous, dancing is dangerous, painting threatens the corrupt. Film and music give us hope when we are hopeless, and poetry - oh my, what poetry can do.

I can’t quite believe this Substack has been going for almost a year and that our next post will come full circle to where everything began as I head away to India soon, so expect Indian influenced, or at least sun-imbued content for a little while. I thought this month as a gift to make this Writing Club Session open to all subscribers. The Audio version I’ll squirrel away at the end for our full subscribers, but everyone is invited to write this month.

• The Writing Mission
  This idea has been hanging around me for a few days, so I thought it would be really interesting to see what you can make with this. I was thinking about things I’ve never done, known, or experienced. Not in a sad shoegazing way, but even quite joyfully. Part one of this is to come up with a list of five things you have never done etc. I’ll be nice here, but you can be as sexy or naughty as you like if you feel inspired to in your writings.
  
  Here are five from me - These are honestly true:

• I have never been to a football (soccer) match

• I have never heard a Taylor Swift song

• I have never driven a car on the other side of the road, ie in a country other than the UK where people drive on the left

• I have never stood for any national anthem or flag

• I have never seen the movie ET

Part Two - The Writing
For my list of five - I just took 10 minutes over and came up with them fresh, and I’m quite fascinated by them myself. Writing about what we don’t know is a really interesting place - far more so than what we do know, perhaps. My biggest-selling book, which is a co-authored book called Four Fathers came about because of something I didn’t know. There was a Polaroid photo I recalled from childhood of myself sitting on my father’s knee, but my mother had taken the picture badly and cut my dad’s head off in the shot. Then when I wanted to write this book on absence and the effect of that on myself as a father, I asked my mum for the photo, and it was nowhere to be found, and that led straight into the spark that became one of my most read pieces.

My invitation to you is to write in prose this month, to take one of your not-dones or unknowns and, over a few writing sessions, generate a first draft, then leave it a day or two and create a second draft etc. The word count is up to you. But one big area I’d invite you to work on is the use of specific detail in your writing. Notice how I said Polaroid photo, and feel the impression that was left in you. If I’d just said photo, how much drier that would be? Be specific with names, places, and what things are.

As ever, I’d love to see your lists and the product of your writings, so do share in the comments, and we can operate as a supportive community with each other. Sadly only full subscribers can share in the comments. The platform won’t let me open comments to all for this post as it contains some full subs content.

Part Three
You know the drill by now - go on a writer’s date with yourself.

Part Four
Buy and read a book from an indie bookstore (Extra gratitude points if you buy or gift one of my books, especially Signposts or SO).

Be part of the ecology of reading and writing. Make the world instead of wishing for it. Write the world instead of leaving it to the others.

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A Little Xmas Gift
Here is a little music playlist for you - should you feel like some different music over the coming days

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I look forward to seeing what you come up with. I am so grateful for your readership and support.

Lots of love

John

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Below this line are the audio version and the index for previous sessions, which are available exclusively for full members. If you’d like to support our work, it’s around the price of a couple of cups of coffee in a small town in England.