This week, online and in-person, at the Writers’ Gym

Enormous thanks to everyone who wrote or sponsored the writers this weekend: Green Ink Sponsored Write 2024 smashed our target for Macmillan Cancer Support. With fifteen years of events for Macmillan in Green Ink Sponsored Write and Writers’ Gym history, it’s such a pleasure to be working with a growing community of loyal writers, editors and readers. Thank you all SO much. If you sponsored us through the page and haven’t received your digital anthology, check your spam folder! If still no joy, get in touch at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com.

Our next in-person and online writing session is at Olympic Studios this coming Saturday, 26 October. Celebrate Twisted Branches’ first birthday by creating your own Short Story Cycle – scroll down, or click here.

This week at the Writers’ Gym…

The Writing Room | 11-1pm Monday 21 October 
FREE for everyone on my mailing list (if you’re reading this, that’s you!). Time and space to think and write with like-minded people. No expectations, no readings, just an open chat box and unmuting for ten minutes’ (totally optional) chat together at the end. Click here.

The Writers’ Gym Podcast Episode 2 | Lands Wednesday 23 October
Build creative confidence and grow your writing world. Every episode, we’ll discuss key writing topics while exploring the goals, exercises, tools and techniques necessary to discover what you really want from your writing — and what your writing really needs from you. Listen on Apple, Spotify or any of your favourite platforms.

Coffee & Creativity | 1-2:30pm Wednesday 23 October
Quality writing time and quality company! Grab a coffee and have a mid-week chat, a write and then another chat with your fellow creatives. Run this week by Bella, as I’ll be away on Wednesday. Free for Writers’ Gym members: type your discount code where indicated. Click here

Writing Room EXTRA | 11am-1pm Thursday 25 October 
Members only: please check your Voxer messages for this link.

Writing a Short Story Cycle | 2.30-7.30pm Saturday 26 October 
It’s also not long before The Writers’ Gym celebrates the first birthday of Twisted Branches with this weekend retreat at Olympic Studios (or online), creating your own short story cycle. Develop your stories, characters and creative confidence with inspiring exercises, supportive discussion, tips and techniques. 30% off for Writers’ Gym members. Click here.

Members and VIP Members: please use your exclusive code to activate your discount. Forgotten/lost your code? No problem: just email info@rachelknightley.com or ask Rachel or Bella in the Voxer app.

Download a brochure at writersgym.com or email thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com

Pleasant Lands: New Writing for Macmillan Cancer Support

Tomorrow is the day.

Back when we were Green Ink Writers’ Gym, the ‘green’ was a reference to Macmillan Cancer Support. Fundraising for that charity was the reason for everything that followed: first Green Ink Theatre, with productions and new writing showcases, then, as I realised what I loved most was also what did the best business for the charity, Green Ink Sponsored Write. It was also what gave me the personal confidence to trust the most important thing I ever learned: if there’s something you want to put in the world, don’t wait to feel like you have permission. Do it scared. Do it imperfectly. Make the world a tiny bit more full of the right things. Macmillan do that every day, listening to what it takes to help everyone affected by cancer live their fullest life.

Here’s how this works. All you have to do to support this amazing charity is read a book:

Green Ink Sponsored Write for Macmillan Cancer Support | Saturday 19 October
A world-exclusive anthology of material created in this Sponsored Write will be emailed to everyone who donates on this page before the writing day ends (19 Oct 2024). Reflecting Macmillan’s mission of quality of life, writers are sponsored for their time, not their word-count. Your anthology will arrive in your inbox (or junk mail – please check!) 48 hours after it’s written (21 Oct 2024). Team 2024 is Isabella Barbieri, Stephanie Bisby, Dan Coxon, Alex Davis, Kayleigh Dobbs, Sarah Dodd, Kim Fleet, John-Paul Flintoff, Marianne Izen, Penny Jones, Rachel Knightley, Nic Lamont, Laura Mauro, Lisa Morton, Katharine Orton, Kenny Reid, Jennifer Steil, Vanessa Thompsett, Steve Toase, Stacey Michelle Warner and Aliya Whiteley. Anthology design will be by Steve J. Shaw of Black Shuck Books and WhiteSpace Designs. Click here.

Writing a Short Story Cycle | 2.30-7.30pm Saturday 26 October 
It’s also not long before The Writers’ Gym celebrates the first birthday of Twisted Branches with this weekend retreat at Olympic Studios (or online), creating your own short story cycle. Develop your stories, characters and creative confidence with inspiring exercises, supportive discussion, tips and techniques. 30% off for Writers’ Gym members. Click here.

Members and VIP Members: please use your exclusive code to activate your discount. Forgotten/lost your code? No problem: just email info@rachelknightley.com or ask Rachel or Bella in the Voxer app.

Download a Writers’ Gym membership brochure at writersgym.com or email thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/animosity-in-fiction/id1674424465?i=1000673245327

In this first episode of season three of The Writers’ Gym Podcast, Dr Rachel Knightley and Emily Inkpen look at animosity in fiction and the ways in which writers can use conflicts, feuds, fights and arguments to add interest and plot lines to their work.

This episode begins with a conversation about the Green Ink Sponsored Write 2024 which is taking place on Saturday 19th October. You can find out more and sponsor Rachel and the other writers here.

Writing workouts and Sponsored Write for Macmillan Cancer Support – at the Writers’ Gym this week

I am enormously grateful to everyone who reached out to me, and to others they know, on last week’s horrible anniversary. Every email, comment or text message, every post ‘like’, every scribbling-out of a swastika with a black sharpie (all actions I happen to know Writers’ Gym members and friends have chosen to show up with), thank you. Whatever level of connection feels right to you, please know it matters. It connects.

More thanks still to all of you in my writing community who are writing for, and sponsoring the writers for, Green Ink Sponsored Write 2024. I’ve been running events for Macmillan Cancer Support since 2009 and what’s now the Sponsored Write evolved from a basic idea that is the essence of creative confidence: I asked myself how what I loved doing could be something that helped the charity I supported – not simply in the publishing but in the creating? Macmillan Cancer Support are all about quality of life for everyone affected by cancer. That’s why the writers are sponsored not for their word-count but for their time. To read a world-exclusive new writing anthology, with any donation no matter how big all small, please help us help Macmillan Cancer Support right here. The digital anthology will be written on 19 October, edited on 20 October and in the inbox of everyone who donates on 21 October – that’s 48 hours from creation to publication.

Before that, though, come and see us for a writing workout or personal training session this week…

The Writing Room | 11-1pm Monday 14 October 
FREE every Monday for everyone on my mailing list (if you’re reading this, that’s you!). Time and space to think and write with like-minded people. No expectations, no readings, just an open chat box and unmuting for ten minutes’ (totally optional) chat together at the end. Click here.

Riverscribes: Creative Writing | 7-8.30pm Tuesday 15 October
A lively and supportive creative writing forum where you are invited to share, discuss and develop your work. Whether you come for one session or every session, you’re guaranteed to build your knowledge, deepen your confidence and increase your enjoyment in your creative writing. Click here

Coffee & Creativity | 1-2.30pm Wednesday 16 October 
Quality writing time and quality company! Grab a coffee and have a mid-week chat, a write and then another chat with your fellow creatives. Free for Writers’ Gym members: type your discount code where indicated. Click here. 

InkCouragement: Creative Confidence Workout | 12-1pm Thursday 17 October 
Boost your confidence and your word-count with a lunch-hour writing workout. Whatever your creative and technical writing life needs, you’ll come away from this writing workout with practical steps to turn your dreams into goals and goals into realisable habits. Free for Writers’ Gym members: type your discount code where indicated. Click here

Writing Room EXTRA | 11am-1pm Friday 18 October 
Members only: please check your Voxer messages for this link.

Come and write with us this week…

Today is going to be hard. The anniversary of the 7 October attack is being marked in my communities and beyond in a number of ways; my personal promise to myself on top of those is to only do what I believe is part of Tikkun Olam, repairing the world. Sending this out at all as if this were a perfectly normal Monday felt wrong at first, until I realised how right and necessary carrying on is; that choosing showing up as ourselves, rather than fear of doing so, is always the road worth taking. I hope my being here helps someone be themselves. That’s why I’m here. So, I keep writing.

Want to grab a workout or personal Training session for your word-count this week? Join me at the Writers’ Gym…

The Writing Room | 11-1pm Monday 7 October 
FREE for everyone on my mailing list (if you’re reading this, that’s you!). Time and space to think and write with like-minded people. No expectations, no readings, just an open chat box and unmuting for ten minutes’ (totally optional) chat together at the end. Click here.

Cocktails & Creativity | 1-2.30pm Wednesday 9 October 
Quality writing time and quality company! Grab a coffee and have a mid-week chat, a write and then another chat with your fellow creatives. Free for Writers’ Gym members: type your discount code where indicated. Click here. 

Writing Room EXTRA | 11am-1pm Thursday 10 October 
Members only: please check your Voxer messages for this link.

FantasyCon | Friday 11 to Sunday 13 October
I’ll be moderating two panels – Making the Familiar Frightening and All About Being an Agent – as well as speaking on the Dealing With Impostor Syndrome panel and giving a reading. Come and say hello if you’re coming to the convention!

What’s beneath our words is worth sharing

Everything we ever say – and everything we ever don’t – we’ve felt and thought first. Sometimes the gap between is a good thing: time to decide what to share, what to keep for ourselves alone. The problem is how fast the gap widens. Particularly when it’s the gap between the perfect thing in our head and the messy first draft that is the only road from head to world. 

That gap is why so many books aren’t finished, or even truly started (and, let’s face it, why so many conversations aren’t opened, jobs left unapplied for, changes left unmade). 

Here is an answer. 

You’re probably not going to like it.

1. Show Up Imperfect. 

Say The Thing, a phrase at the heart of the Writers’ Gym, was first said to me by Ariel Fisher when I was writing for Fangoria. I use it every day to identify what I want to say and why I want to say it. It’s tempting as a beginner writer to believe it’s only the best ideas, the most useful, the truest, that make it out there. That’s a great reason to channel our creative energy into looking for others’ permission, or overwriting to sound like a writer, or waiting for absolute certainty in our feelings before daring to put our words out there. Perfection and certainty aren’t prerequisites for communication. Courage and curiosity are.

Your words don’t need to be perfect. They need to be understood. Which means they need to be good enough, clear enough. Enough is, often, enough.

Is it strange to hear an author, a writing coach, encouraging you not to get hung up on the words? Writing is a means to the end. The end is not perfect words. It’s connecting with each other. 

2. Connection beats perfection. (For a start, it exists.)

My LAMDA students Ram and Amerie Said The Thing to me this week after their recent LAMDA Exams. Their results matter to them not simply because of the destination (distinctions) but because of the journey they haven’t forgotten now they’re on to the next one: their LAMDA coaching isn’t just about looking at the next achievement, it’s appreciating how impossible the one they’ve just achieved once seemed and honouring what they had to do and think in order to change it from impossible to hard and worth it! Ram, for example, used to think he couldn’t do his speechwriting on his own. That all the speechwriting had to be in our sessions, never between. Then we picked a subject he truly loved and I knew nothing about – football – and he told his truth in his own words. This week, I received a gift from Ram. One he had voluntarily written himself:

This was such a personal gift, such a thoughtful thank-you, that it will serve me as a reminder for the rest of my career that Saying The Thing is worth the fear of vulnerability in meaning it.

Ram’s sister Amerie painted a picture for me to say thank you. It was inspired by Teddy, my cat, my teaching assistant until his death in 2019 and one of Amerie’s first memories of LAMDA coaching. She remembers him because he made her feel calm and happy as he sat between us on the sofa in my old living room, a decade ago, while she wrote, spoke, rehearsed and performed. It wasn’t what Teddy said that made him important to Amerie…

Teddy’s presence in Amerie’s painting is itself a reminder that, in the end, it’s not what we say but how we make others feel that they remember:

It’s not our words that make the connection. It’s our willingness to reach out with them. If you’ve got something to say, a story you’re ready to explore, the world is as ready as you are.

You probably know I start every week with The Writing Room. Anyone on my mailing list (that’s you) is welcome to join for the full two hours or just a few minutes and write together. You don’t have to call yourself a writer. There are no ‘have to’s at all. It’s time for you to do whatever you want and need. We unmute for an optional chat at 12.50pm. 

Other ways to build you writing and creative confidence this October:

The Writers’ Gym monthly calendar

Writing a Short Story Cycle | Saturday 26 October | Southwest London and online 

Riverscribes Creative Writing | Tuesdays 1, 15, 29 October | Riverside Studios 

Come and write with us this week…

Ready to stop waiting for the perfect moment? Grab a workout for your word-count (or a PT session here) this week:

The Writing Room | 11-1pm Monday 30 September 
FREE for everyone on my mailing list (if you’re reading this, that’s you!). Time and space to think and write with like-minded people. No expectations, no readings, just an open chat box and unmuting for ten minutes’ (totally optional) chat together at the end. Click here.

Riverscribes: Creative Writing Workshop | 7-8.30pm Tuesday 1 October 
A lively and supportive creative writing forum where you are invited to share, discuss and develop your work at Riverside Studios. Whether you come for one session or every session, you’re guaranteed to build your knowledge, deepen your confidence and increase your enjoyment in your creative writing. Click here. 

Friday Writing Workout | 12-1pm Friday 4 October 
The perfect creative start to the weekend. Boost your confidence and your word-count with a lunch-hour writing workout. Whether you’re an experienced writer or just beginning, enjoy exercises, discussion, tips and techniques to build your strength, knowledge and creativity. Free for Writers’ Gym members: type your discount code where indicated. Click here.

Coming up on Saturday 26 October:

Writing a Short Story Cycle | 2.30pm-5.30pm at Olympic Studios
Celebrate the first birthday of Twisted Branches by Rachel Knightley with an afternoon workshop exploring the techniques for creating plots and themes that link a short story collection to make the world you create so much more than the sum of its parts. Click here.

Members and VIP Members: please use your exclusive codes on any online workshops to activate your discount. Forgotten/lost your code? No problem: just email info@rachelknightley.com or ask Rachel in the Voxer app.

Download a Writers’ Gym membership brochure at writersgym.com or email thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com

Listen to Winter Spring: An Audio Drama by Rachel Knightley and Alternative Stories on Apple, Spotify or any of your favourite platforms.

Time to stop starving your creativity?

You probably know I start every week with The Writing Room. Anyone on my mailing list (that’s you), any friend, anyone in my community is welcome to join for the full two hours or just a few minutes and write together. You don’t have to call yourself a writer. There are no ‘have to’s at all. It’s time for you to do whatever you want and need to do. We unmute for a chat at the end – and today the subject of notebooks came up. Specifically, what does and doesn’t go into them.

I’m not the only person in the Writing Room who’s caught themselves starving their notebook. Today I heard all the usual reasons I’ve so often given myself – like how beautiful the notebook is, how we don’t want to diminish it, how we want what we finally write to be worthy. So today I compared that beautiful notebook to a friendship, a relationship, a pet, a sibling: to anyone and everyone you love. 

“I didn’t want to bother you…” or “I know how busy you are”… might have good intentions. But however good the intentions, the truth is that it’s starving – instead of feeding – the relationship.

The offer I made today is this:

See your notebook as a Tamagotchi. One of those digital dog or cat programmes you keep alive by remembering to feed, and stroke, and do all the things it needs. It’s not about doing it perfectly. It’s about showing up.

What happens if we don’t show up for our Tamagotchi? The same things happens with the non-biological creature as would happen with the biological one. RIP.

Tamagotchi’s aren’t really alive. Neither, necessarily, are notebooks. We can’t kill something in the literal sense by not showing up for them. But there are deeper truths than the literal, and creative confidence is all about working out the courage and specificity of what you want to create in order to begin creating it. Which, on the page and in the world, starts with a first draft. Not a perfect thing in your head, but an imperfect thing in the world.

Our notebooks, like our relationships, are healthier for being fed and stroked than being held back from – however good we think our intentions are in holding back. The braver thing, the thing the world outside our head gets more out of, is us daring to show up.

A Creative I-Dare-You: What if my notebook or computer is my Tamagotchi? 
It’s not about how much or how perfectly you show up for it. It’s just about showing up.

Want to build creative confidence along with your word-count? Join me for Fiction, Memoir and Truth this Saturday 28 September on Zoom.

This Week at the Writers’ Gym

Looking for more writing time this week? Join us this Saturday for our next online retreat at the Writers’ Gym: 

Fiction, Memoir and Truth | 3-6.30pm Saturday 28 September 
Whether we’re exploring the stories that made us who we are or imagining the versions of ourselves resulting from paths untaken, fiction and memoir are equally magical to write. Join us for an online afternoon retreat at the Writers’ Gym and see where your stories go next. 30% off for Writers’ Gym members. Click here

Your upcoming week at the Writers’ Gym:

The Writing Room | 11-1pm Monday 23 September 
FREE for everyone on my mailing list (if you’re reading this, then that’s you!). Time and space to think and write with like-minded people. No expectations, no readings, just an open chat box and unmuting for ten minutes’ chat at the end. Click here

Sponsored Write Interview | 12pm Wednesday 25 September 
This year’s page is now open for Green Ink Sponsored Write for Macmillan Cancer Support. This week, hear Writers’ Gym staff member and Sponsored Writer, Isabella Barbieri, in conversation with Writers’ Gym member and first-time Sponsored Writer Kim Fleet on Instagram Live: @jointhewritersgym 

Coffee & Creativity | 1-2:30pm Wednesday 25 September 
Quality writing time and quality company! Grab a coffee and have a mid-week chat, a write and then another chat with your fellow creatives. Free for Writers’ Gym members: type your discount code where indicated. Click here

Cocktails & Creativity | 7-8.30pm Thursday 26 September
Grab a drink – a pen, a keyboard or blank page and join us at the virtual pub! Hosted by Writers’ Gym staff member, Isabella Barbieri. We chat for fifteen minutes, work on our own projects and then chat again, whether that be about writing, art or life. Free for Writers’ Gym members: type your discount code where indicated. Click here 

InkCouragement: Friday Writing Workout | 12-1pm Friday 27 September 
Boost your confidence and your word-count with a lunch-hour writing workout. Whatever your creative and technical writing life needs, you’ll come away from this writing workout with practical steps to turn your dreams into goals and goals into realisable habits. Free for Writers’ Gym members: type your discount code where indicated.Click here

Fiction, Memoir and Truth | 3-6.30pm Saturday 28 September 
Whether we’re exploring the stories that made us who we are or imagining the versions of ourselves resulting from paths untaken, fiction and memoir are equally magical to write. Join us for an online afternoon retreat at the Writers’ Gym and see where your stories go next. 30% off for Writers’ Gym members. Click here

Members and VIP Members: please use your exclusive codes on any online workshops to activate your discount. Forgotten/lost your code? No problem: just email info@rachelknightley.com or ask Rachel in the Voxer app.

Download a Writers’ Gym membership brochure at writersgym.com or email thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com

Listen to Winter Spring: An Audio Drama by Rachel Knightley and Alternative Stories on Apple, Spotify or any of your favourite platforms.

Listen here as I chat with Writers’ Gym co-host, Emily Inkpen about my new audio drama: Winter Spring.

For someone running late with her autumn newsletter, there’s a pleasant irony to how the seasons have been shouting at me in art and life this week. A few Writers’ Gym members have heard how Hell Bunny’s advertising campaign really spoke to me: Summer’een, a time I certainly experience when I’m ready for the run-up to my default wardrobe’s season – Halloween – but the weather just won’t be told. Hell Bunny are using it to advertise (fabulous) summer dresses with spiders and bats on, but for me recognising Summer’een isn’t about buying anything. Instead it’s about ‘matching to the seasons’, a brilliant speech topic created by my LAMDA student Monica, recent recipient of Bronze Medal with distinction in Public Speaking (well done again, Monica!). My friend Natalie Leon’s new book, The Japanese Art of Living Seasonally, came out shortly before Monica’s speeches. Simultaneously, my first audio drama with Alternative Stories, Winter Spring launched last Friday (on the second spookiest day I could have hoped for, short of Halloween itself: Friday 13th September). 

Winter Spring takes its name from two fictionalised family names. In the attached interview which I’m sharing with permission from the Alternative Stories podcast, I talk about the questions its characters and plot lines evolved from, and how the best and worst aspects of my life experience fed into those questions. 

I do hope you enjoy listening to the interview, and if (as I hope above all) it gets you asking your own questions and ready to write your own “what ifs” in response, do come and join me on Saturday 28 September for the Writers’ Gym’s next Saturday retreat, Fiction, Memoir and Truth.

The Writers’ Gym Podcast with me, Emily Inkpen and Chris Gregory returns in October (photo below from our recent recording sessions, with Emily teaching me the difference between a Millennial heart and a Gen Z heart – I’m sticking to the Vulcan salute) but in the meantime there are many ways to get involved:

Listen to Winter Spring…
on Spotify (below), Apple Podcasts (above), or any podcast platform:https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/2gBu6Bqmc7CiC8zwXTYIPZ

Come to the Writing Room for free, every Monday…
Drop in any time from 11am to 1pm, or stay for the whole two hours. We unmute at 12.50pm for a chat about art and/or life. Weekly links on Substack every Monday.

Join the Writers’ Gym, as a member or guest. Anybody can join any session, and our weekly programme is free to members. Monthly calendar at www.writersgym.com or book any event here.

Book a one-to-one creative confidence session. Whether you want to start that story, finish that book, build your freelance or personal life and career, this is the space to get to know what you want and how to make it happen. Email info@rachelknightley.com or read more here.