New Words #25: Alone Together

Finding community for solo work

When you work alone or engage in creative pursuits that require solitude and focus, it can be difficult to manage your time effectively and keep yourself accountable for meeting your goals. I’m grateful to have fairly regular opportunities to meet online with writer friends and colleagues I’ve met through my professional associations for a bit of conversation and some dedicated time to work on our respective projects.

If those opportunities sound great but aren’t available in your communities at a time that is convenient for you, keep in mind that it isn’t always necessary to match up with other people who are doing the same type of task. Body doubling can be effective even when we partner with people whose goals are very different from ours or whom we might never meet in person. In the two years I have been using the one-on-one video coworking platform Focusmate, I have worked with people on every continent except Antarctica. (In fact, I’m on Focusmate as I write this. Hi, Adrean!)

I spend most of my sessions writing or translating, and many of my partners are also at their desks, but some are exercising, rehearsing music, cooking, or cleaning their homes. We share a portion of our day, we cheer for one another’s milestones, and our pets grace our screens with unscheduled appearances. Even when we are matched with partners who work in a different industry or who create art in a different medium, we sometimes find we have resources to share. And especially for those of us engaged in long-term creative projects that can feel isolating, a dose of camaraderie can help us feel connected.

Self-Promotion Corner

I’m thrilled to have my short story “Fallmore” published in The Common this month! Set on the west coast of Ireland in 1847, this is my first published piece of historical fiction—and I wrote some dialogue in Irish, which makes the story extra special to me. Here’s a glimpse of the setting (particularly the scene where Mairéad looks out across the bay at the hills of Achill in the distance):

Teampall Deirbhile, An Fál Mór | Deirbhile’s Church, Fallmore. Photo by Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33407603.

I’m also proud to have been selected as a mentee for this year’s edition of the AWP Writer to Writer program. From now through July, I’m working on the next draft of my novel-in-progress and benefiting from the guidance of my mentor, Ciera Horton McElroy, author of Atomic Family. Writer to Writer is a great program, and I encourage AWP members to be on the lookout for future application periods.

A Humble Suggestion

In most newsletters, I offer at least one recommendation for your reading, watching, or listening pleasure. This time around, in keeping with the theme, I’m highlighting a few opportunities for writers and translators to build community this summer.

For two weeks starting June 1 (that’s this Saturday!), author Jami Attenberg’s weekly (and always enjoyable) Craft Talk newsletter plays host to her #1000wordsofsummer challenge. She provides pep talks and an infrastructure (via Slack) for community chat and accountability; you do your darnedest to write a thousand words per day, fourteen days in a row, and cheer on your fellow participants. Unlike the next two opportunities, this one is free of charge—and if you opt for a paid subscription, Attenberg donates all fees for the month of June to charitable organizations.

Also kicking off on Saturday, June 1, is A SmokeLong Summer, an (intense) offshoot of SmokeLong Quarterly’s year-round workshopping community for writers of flash fiction and nonfiction. Lots of prompts, lots of feedback on drafts, lots of opportunities to share your published work, lots of webinars that include pre-scheduled and aptly named periods of “awkward mingling” in Zoom breakout rooms.

The annual Bristol Translates summer school for practicing and aspiring literary translators will be held online in early July and is currently accepting applications. In addition to small-group workshops for translators in several language pairs (working into or out of English), the program includes practical sessions on working with editors and publishers.

Here, Look at My Cats

The world is a mess, and you might welcome a pleasant distraction. For what it’s worth, here are my cats.

David wants to snuggle. Alexis wants some personal space. They’ve found a way to compromise.

Get out there and find some colleagues or coworking partners to hold paws with!

Laura