Week of 12/29-1/4
Hello!
Welcome to the last week of 2025. I hope we’re all taking advantage of the hibernation vibe this time of year has to offer. I’m not a huge New Year’s resolution person, but I am taking advantage in the shifting of gears the start of the new year brings and creating a rigorous morning writing schedule for myself through March in hopes that I can blast through this last draft of my novel by the time spring starts to bloom. Would love when I see you all this week to hear about your current batch of writing goals, what you’re excited about, what you’ve read recently that is lighting you up.
Here’s what’s going on this week:
2 Spots Left in Person Retreat!
I sent this along in last week’s note, but 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 Help Requested:
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.
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 January 2.
Noon Crew Thursdays 12pm - 1:30: Our next meeting is January 8. Ina will have the floor then and have pages due on January 2. The following meeting is January 22 and Sara will have pages due.
Weirdlings Thursdays 12pm - 1:30: The rescheduled New Years Day meeting will happen at noon on Wednesday December 31 and Erika is bumping her floor time, so if anyone wants to snag it, let me know! I’ve sent along some essays for us to read and chat about if we have no takers. The meeting after that is on January 15 and Elizabeth will have the floor. Pages are due January 8.
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: Next Meeting December 29, this coming Monday. Tom will have floor time. The following meeting is January 8 and Garth and Maia are up for floor time.
Saturday besties 12:30pm - 2: Georgia and Helen will have pages due by December 29 and the following meeting will be on January 3.
Gen Writing Prompts for 12/30 and 1/4
December 30, 2025 and January 3, 2026
This was one of my favorite movies, for whatever reason, when I was a kid in the 80s. For those of you that haven’t seen it, it stars Tom Hanks and Shelley Long as a couple trying to renovate a recently purchased home and it keeps falling apart in comical ways. I’ve been thinking about how when starting a new piece in can be helpful to contain the setting to a small space in the same way it can be helpful to limit the timeline of a story. Let’s try this week.
Write a new piece in whatever genre of your choice that takes place inside a contained space like a house, a store, or a hotel. Do not leave the space you choose, all of the action should happen in there and possibly even sometimes because of the space. Here are some circumstances you can work with:
Steal the Money Pit plot. Two people buy a house together and it proceeds to fall apart in surprising, hilarious, scary ways. Or maybe the house is haunted or somehow alive.
Two kids hide inside of their local convenience store and get locked in at closing time.
Post apocalypse, a cluster of folks set up camp inside of an abandoned grocery store
Some community drama comes to a head inside of a place of worship — synagogue, mosque, church, etc.
Three families roaming around a zoo somehow have to interact, perhaps they work together to free an animal or hide a treasure
The staff at an animal shelter that’s about to close develop some whacky plans to get the remaining animals adopted
A band debates breaking up in the green room while waiting to perform
Write something told from the perspective of a minister who works as a Las Vegas chapel
Success Stories!
Send them my way, pls.
Happy writing this week. I think you all are the bee’s knees.
