Hey Sweet One.

I remember a workshop, years ago, where at the start, every person shared that they were exhausted. One of us sighed and said, “There aren’t enough words for tired.”

Well, drop that sentence into a room of word-lovers! We were off like horses, listing kinds of tired.

“Six weeks of insomnia tired”
“February tired”
“After a fight tired”

It turned into a beautiful writing prompt, all of us finding the nuances and stories of our exhaustion.

These days we hear versions of that go-around a lot, and we spend a ton of time considering how to meet you in your tiredness, and help you work (softly, kindly) from there.

So, this fall we decided to bring back a gentle, grounding program to help you ask questions like:

How to I write even when I’m exhausted and don’t feel like it?
What does it mean to create a sustainable practice?
How can I be real about what’s in my way, and keep writing?

It’s a new take on last year’s “Slow Growth,” but slower still. We took our favourite parts of that program and spread them out to make more room for reflection, writing and reconnecting to our voices.

I’m smiling as I write this, because I need this program badly.

Covid hit me hard this fall. Even though I’ve been testing negative for over a week, I’m still sleepy and bewildered most of the time, like I was swimming happily along and then realized that the pool was bone dry. Where did the water go? I’ve been fruitlessly trying to keep up — with my lists, with the news, with my inbox. And as Mary Oliver says:

Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes

So this November I’m going to be leaning into Kim and Sophia’s direction, remembering how to let things grow slowly. I will lower the bar, and ask: What is trying to happen right now? What is possible today?

This program is sliding scale, welcome to all, and will include an active listener for any moments when writing feels like too much. We’d love for you to join us.

It’s true, there aren’t enough words for tired.

But there are endless ways to write about the truth of our days, with all their wonders, losses, strange corners, secrets and sweetnesses. We’re here to share that road with you.

In it with you,

P. S. That Mary Oliver excerpt is from her poem Wild Geese, you can read the whole thing here.