Week of 1/4-1/11
Hello!
We made it through 2025, and now here we are. The year is new and we are heading into the first full week of January which I always call “dead week,” as we’re all reeling from December and the world has gotten rolling again but also it hasn’t.
Here’s what’s going on this week in the Book Buddy Universe:
Just 1 Spot Left in Person Retreat!
Do you want it?
Just a reminder that 2026’s first retreat is January 10 at Cityspace in Easthampton as usual. This time I’m going 10-5 instead of 6. I think til 6 is sort of a long day. Book Buddies get a 10% off discount using the code BOOKBUDDY10 at checkout. You can add a half hour coaching session to the mix for $50 (make sure you do that at checkout as well). You can also come for a half day - 3 hours, for $55.
Link for full day registration is here.
January 29 Boston George Saunders Field Trip: ARE YOU COMING? It will be a blast.
This is coming up! If you would like to come, you can buy a ticket here! If you have purchased a ticket, can you send me an email to let me know you plan to come? I want to start a list and also plan a carpool from western MA. Thanks so much!
Book Club :
Thanks for making book club awesome. The google doc with a list of book suggestions is still open for additions if you haven’t gotten to it, and it’s right here. Thanks so much to those of you who have already contributed! It’s so helpful to me. If you see something already on there you want to read, please put a mark next to it. I’m more likely assign us books many of you are psyched about. I’ll send out the April and June book club dates and books mid-January!
Our first book of 2026 if Rick Rubin’s “The Creative Act: A Way of Being.” Book Club will be Tuesday February 17 instead of Gen Writing that day. Open to all Book Buddies! I hope you can come!
Feedback Group Submission Schedules!
IRL Group Wednesdays @ beautyland 6:30-8:30: Next meeting is January 7. Aimee and Johanna have the floor with Rich as a back up. Pages are due ASAP. Rich’s are in! Aimee let us know an ETA when you can.
Noon Crew Thursdays 12pm - 1:30: Our next meeting is January 8. Ina will have the floor then and have pages due ASAP. The following meeting is January 22 and Sara will have pages due.
Weirdlings Thursdays 12pm - 1:30: The meeting after that is on January 15 and Elizabeth will have the floor. Pages are due January 8. The following meeting is January 29. Ed is technically on the schedule, but Erika couldn’t submit last time so let’s touch base on the sub schedule again when we’re together on the 8th.
Kool Kids Thursdays at 7pm - 8:30: We meet again on January 15 when Kristin will have floor time. I forgot that I need to move our January 29 meeting because that is the night of the George Saunders field trip, so let’s make sure the schedule is all set next time we see each other.
OG Crew Thursdays at 7:30pm - 9: The next meeting is January 8 and Garth and Maia are up for floor time. We’ve got their pages in already. The following meeting is January 22. Malavika is definitely up for floor time then, but let’s suss out the second slot when we’re together on the 8th!
Saturday besties 12:30pm - 2: The next meeting is January 17 and Helen and Ali have pages due 1/10.
Gen Writing Prompts for January 6 and maybe 10, 2026
The in person retreat is Saturday 1/10 which means I am on the hunt for someone to cover gen writing or will send you the zoom link that day so any of you that want to can meet without a facilitator. LMK if you wanna be Gen Writing host on 1/10!
Scaredy Cats
Often craft advice will hammer home the idea that you have to know what your character wants and what they are afraid of. This definition of fear, to me, is open-ended and vague. We need to know both what terrifies our characters in the way of core fears — spiders, heights, tight spaces, etc. — and what emotional fears are responsible for their behavior — abandonment, being unloveable, that an ugly lie someone told about their core self is true, being without resources etc. So we’re talking jump scares, spooky spooks and the like or the deep dark you bring to your therapist.
Of course they’re all intertwined, but I’m separating the ideas this week for the purposes of this prompt. This week I want us to work with the jump scare, the spooky spook stuff. The fears that are arbitrary sometimes but irrational.
Write a new piece in the genre of your choice that deals with a fear that you or a character harbors. You can go traditional by working with someone who is afraid of anything on this list of the most common phobias. Begin with a description of the nature of the phobia — where the person thinks it came from, how it feels to think about it — and then try to find a way for an interaction or anticipated interaction with the feared thing to launch the story.
If you don’t want to use a common phobia, at the start of gen writing we’ll populate the chat with a few of our own idiosyncratic, weirder fears or things that give us the ick so bad we avoid at all costs, and we can use those as fodder to launch a new piece.
Success Stories!
Rebecca Tiger has got a new piece in TRASH CAT LIT: “Shitty Kitty.” Read it here.
Happy writing this week. You’re my faves.
