Talking with strangers

Attending a residential writing course

Last week I started most mornings with a white American woman in her seventies who used to live with Rastafarians and wrote raps. Normally I eat my breakfast with Greg James. I made the switch from TV to radio when the world felt too heavy. Greg provides the one-way funnies I need first thing in the morning. Marygold (not a flower, not a glove) had stories to tell and I wasn’t even awake yet.

Attending a five day, residential writing retreat (one of my two career experiments) in the middle of the English countryside with 17 strangers was an experience I will not forget in a hurry. The atmosphere they curate at Arvon truly is something special. Shared cooking, fantastic tutors, a balance of structured and unstructured time, the location, the people - all meld together to create a unique experience. What I loved most was the opportunity to mix with amazing people I wouldn’t meet in everyday life. Turns out the thing I was most scared of became my highlight.

The setting in the Shropshire hills

I’ve lost track of when I last made a new friend. I don’t think I’ve ever had a non-work friend who was more than 10 years different to me in age. Suddenly I had access to people who had lived life and were not afraid to share it. A poet from Berlin who officiated the marriage of his ex, a Scot who’s lover hitchhiked across the country to bring her a kale cabbage, a woman in her eighties who stuck two fingers up to the life she was expected to live - at 50. I wanted them to show me the way, tell me what to do. But that involved sharing in return and I wasn’t sure how ready to do that I was.

What I struggled with was the intensity. Walking into a life writing course I should have expected people would be sharing but at times it did feel like a competition. Who’d lived through the most trauma, and how eloquently could they describe it. As one of both the youngest and most introverted in the room I felt like I had something to prove. 

The workshop room at The Hurst

Although I write most weeks, I’ve never read my own work aloud - not since school anyway, and certainly never around a gigantic, Traitors style circular wooden table while 17 strangers stared at me. When I read my writing aloud for the first time I could feel my heart thumping in my chest and see my hands shaking. But the second time felt easier, the third easier again until I felt weirdly empowered to read about eating a banana while reflecting on my disdain for poetic descriptions of birdsong during a nature writing exercise - but that was me. And that was the point. 

The combination of experience from the tutors was clever. I can see now how every exercise Musa set us was designed to help each of us find our voice - the unique thing that propelled us on. Bec would then swoop in with a helping of practical genius to help us actually write. Slowly realising this was such a boost. Suddenly I felt ok about not knowing all the long words, or where the commas went. 

What also started to happen was the generational gap started to close. A big part of this was the guest reading from Emma Gannon on the Wednesday evening. As a big fan of Emma’s work it was wonderful to spend an evening with her. Many of the group had never heard of Emma but things started to change. They began to see that there is more to life writing that writing your memoirs later in life.

I began to gravitate to the older women at meal times. I felt privileged to be able to learn from their experiences in life, in love, in building families and careers. But they also wanted to learn from me. “She gets paid to write, you know… she’s doing it.” A motivating, if somewhat untrue, thing to overhear as I left the lunch table. I offered to run an impromptu tutorial on Substack - and people came.

When strangers become friends

I began the week as a humble blogger struggling to write a book, I’m leaving as a proud writer with a way forward. A brain fizzing with ideas and a new found confidence thanks to the scary strangers I swapped stories with over granola. 

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This story brings me to my next steps for this Substack. Recently I reached 1000 followers which felt lovely. What this course taught me is that I’m already writing and I’ve found my voice but I need to push myself to experiment with subject matter, language, tone and story telling.

So from now on I will continue to write about running a business and being a designer but I also want to write about being a childfree by choice woman on the cusp of 40. I want to write about relationships, connection, not having kids… the list goes on. I want to take the open, honest, vulnerable approach to writing you all connect with into a more personal space.

So moving forwards I will be experimenting. I may throw out a humorous ode to bras one week (spoiler for next week) followed by a dissection of a service design workshop method the next. I will mix the professional with the personal, inner narrative with dialogue and prose. Humour with darkness. All in the name of figuring out what might stick - because someday, I’d like to write that book.

There are now three sections to my Substack; Business, design and life. You can pick and choose which your subscribe to via your settings and old content is slowly being categorised into these areas for you to revisit.

I’m also going to more active on Notes moving forward. I’d love your thoughts, feedback and reflections on my writing. Every like and comment helps.