A Meeting With Your Writing: How it works
A Meeting With Your Writing is a guided co-writing practice, and a container to do your own writing. During the academic year, the Meeting helps you protect time for writing in the face of multiple demands. During the long summer break or your sabbatical, it adds just enough structure to your week.
It doesn’t matter what language you write in. It doesn’t matter what you are writing about. It doesn’t matter what career stage you are or what kind of position you have or what kind of institution you work at.
You join a Zoom meeting. There is a short opening exercise. You write for a full 90 minutes. We meet back and finish with a short closing exercise and share some small victories as a community.
If you have trouble getting started or get stuck while writing, the host is available for micro-coaching.
When do we meet?
Most people can only fit one meeting a week into their busy schedule but that one meeting makes a huge difference (especially if it’s on Monday). You are welcome to come more frequently if the times work for you.
A Meeting With Your Writing is held 4 times a week to give you options:
Mondays
- 10 a.m. UK (11 a.m. CET; 6 a.m. Atlantic, 6:30 a.m. NL, 5 a.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Western Australia)
- 10 a.m. Eastern (7 a.m. Pacific, 11 a.m. Atlantic, 3 p.m. UK, 4 p.m. CET)
- 3 p.m. Eastern (noon Pacific, 4 p.m. Atlantic, 8 p.m. UK, 9 p.m. CET, Tuesday 7 a.m. AEDT, 9 a.m. NZDT)
Thursdays
- 10 a.m. Eastern (7 a.m. Pacific, 11 a.m. Atlantic, 3 p.m. UK, 4 p.m. Europe)
TimeandDate.com has a useful time zone conversion tool available here for wherever you are. More information about Australian and New Zealand.
In March and October, the time may shift for a week or so due to the change between Standard Time and Daylight Savings Time (aka Summer Time) which happens on a different date in North America and Europe. If you are in Australia or New Zealand, this is further muddled up by your own change in the other direction. The first time listed above is the time of record.
What kinds of opening and closing questions?
The opening and closing questions are intended to help create the mental container for writing.
They remind you how competent you are, help you select a project and task to work on, and prompt you to think about the various things that might affect your focus today so you can identify strategies to optimise your focus.
When you return after writing for 90 minutes, the questions help you acknowledge how your project moved forward. There is also some (optional) sharing to build build a sense of community.
Recordings of these opening and closing segments are also available on the members website to use for your other writing sessions. There are also timed recordings for shorter sessions to complement your longer sessions.
Coaching support
A Meeting With Your Writing is, first and foremost, a coworking session. However, the hosts are experienced academic writers, editors, and coaches. If you have trouble getting started or get stuck during the session, the host is available to help you get your project moving again.
You will only need this support occasionally, but when you do, it makes a huge difference to your writing practice. Not only will you make effective use of that particular session, you are more likely to keep showing up for your writing, even when things are frustrating.