Keep Writing
an online writing circleFor when you just need a consistent writing practice with other people.
Because writing gets lonely, your mind becomes an echo-chamber, and it doesn’t have to be that way.
- Weekly sessions
- Maximum 10 people per session
- Online via Zoom videocall
Janelle offers one of the safest, most open, heart-centered writing workshops I’ve ever had the good fortune to be a part of.
The invitation to write unfiltered, and then to share that writing aloud in a welcoming, creatively-nourishing space, is wildly powerful.
True and stunning beauty comes out of this process. The simplicity makes space for the richness.
After each session people often say things like:
- I showed up grumpy and despairing, but now I feel so light and happy.
- I felt so stuck in my writing and now I’ve got 3 new pieces started.
- I’ve been having a hard time writing on my own and staying motivated. Now this weekly session keeps me going.
- I didn’t think listening to other people’s writing would feel more amazing than reading my own writing, but it does.
- I love this so much!!!
This is a straightforward live writing circle.
If you’ve taken my Art of Personal Mythmaking course, you know how it goes. It’s a variation on the live writing circle portion.
If you’ve taken Personal Mythmaking, you also know how rich, magic and freeing it is.
If you haven’t taken Personal Mythmaking with me yet, this is how Keep Writing works:
Over most of the year I run Keep Writing in a 12-session stretch (around 3 months) of weekly sessions.
I keep the circles small – no more than 10 people per circle.
Each session is 2 hours (2.5 hours if we have more than 7 people), and it’s structured so we write, a lot, and we listen, deeply.
Each session looks like this:
Joining the call: with music playing. Camera on or off, you’re invite to move/dance/loosen up your body and feel the vibes. (The rest of the circle happens with camera on).
First 12 minutes: a check-in to hear how each person is doing.
Next 80ish minutes: we write like maniacs to timed prompts – I share some sort of weird, wonderful and creativity sparking material (it could be a poem, or a paragraph form a book, or a short video, or a song, or a body-based visualization) and we write non-stop for 15 minutes.
After each timed prompt, we take turns reading our writing out loud with no explanations, preamble or critique, just the divine alchemy of getting a chance to voice our writing and to listen deeply to each other’s material.
We repeat this 2 more times.
Then another 12 minutes: to close the process with reflection and/or intention setting.
Our last 15 minutes: we get to hang out and use our time for optional chatting/discussion/decompression. It’s a great feeling.
(As if we were in-person, bumbling into each other at my doorway, gathering our things up and getting ready to leave, chatting and storytelling. Like that.)
Did I say it’s creative magic?
You might be wondering if there’s a theme, and what kind of source material I use for the writing prompts…
One of the things I love about teaching The Art of Personal Mythmaking live is the deliberate and designed container of the 5-month process. That I can take people through a transformational process which is also designed to generate the rough draft of their memoir.
However, in order to create an amazing, contained, supportive process, I actually have to set aside a lot of the weird, wonderful and marvelous material that I’m longing to share.
The good news is, in these Keep Writing sessions I can be totally unstructured and random in the writing prompts I share.
And you can enjoy showing up ready to be surprised and delighted, and settle into the wonderful state of not knowing what kind of writing will come out of you. Just going with the flow.
Here’s a sampling of some of the books and source material I want to share with you:
- The Calvin and Hobbes cartoon series.
- James Herriot’s tales of rural veterinarian life during and after WWII in Yorkshire (northern England).
- Folk and fairytales.
- Honey, Mud, Maggots and Other Medical Marvels: the science behind folk remedies and old wives’ tales.
- The Frog and Toad story series.
- The Dirt on Clean: an unsanitized history.
- A variety of delightful and gorgeous illustrated children’s books.
- The Hand: how its use shapes the brain, language and human culture.
- Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink.
- Leaving Mother Lake: a girlhood at the edge of the world.
- Sad, Mad and Bad: women and the mind-doctors from 1800.
- A Natural History of the Senses.
- My daughter’s extensive collection of knock-knock jokes.
- Plucked: a history of hair removal.
- The Phaidon Photo Book.
- One Letter Words: A Dictionary.
- Ritual and Belief: readings in the anthropology of religion.
- Eaglecams
And so much more.
You get the point? I aim to have fun, delight you and spark all sorts of wild writing.
So why don’t you join in!
Autumn 2023
Thursdays
October – December
In this series we’ll have:
- 7 weekly sessions
- October 26th – Dec 7th
- 2 hours: 8:30 – 10:30am Pacific Time (2.5 hours if there are more than 7 people)
$390 USD
- payment plans available
Canadians – if you’d like to pay in Canadian $$ via e-transfer, you’re welcome to make one pay-in-full payment of $515 CAD to jaha (at) janellehardy.com (or e-mail me to arrange a payment plan)
Are you in the Vancouver area?
Sometimes I also have an in-person Keep Writing Circle!
Meet your guide:
Hi, my name is Janelle Hardy. I work with creative, sensitive, big-hearted people, helping them to grow, heal and thrive.
I’ve been working as a trauma-informed Structural Integrator doing one-on-one hands-on healing bodywork for over 14 years, and teaching individuals and groups for even longer.
I’ve got a particular passion for our individual and cultural stories, a deep reverence for the power of stories and identity, and great respect for the immensely beautiful force of questioning our stories, even as we honour them.
My passion lies is weaving our connection with the creative arts and the body together with deep cultural knowing and self exploration (and lifestories and memoirs are a great way to do that) to create spaciousness, ease and joy in our lives.
What this means for you is that I’ve got an uncommon ability to listen deeply, ask useful questions, see patterns, draw threads together, do my research and guide you towards your goals.
I’m also a published writer with a BA in Anthropology, an MA in Dance and a Diploma in Hellerwork Structural Integration. I’ve worked as a research assistant at Yukon Archives, as a teacher and teaching assistant at various colleges and universities, and taught creative writing and healing workshops online and in person.
So let’s step towards our calling, towards our stories, towards our personal mythologies, and start the mythmaking.
So why don’t you join me in this playful writing circle series? It’ll be weird, marvelous and fun.
Janelle
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you record the sessions?
If you sign up, plan to show up. There are limited spots for these workshops, and my preference is to have people joining in and participating.
What do I need to participate?
An email account. The link to the workshop videocall will be send to you via e-mail.
Access to the internet. Our videocalls require being connected to the internet.
Timeframe. 2 hours.
Optional: earbuds/headphones so the sound quality is better (recommended if you’ll have background noise and/or get distracted by background noise.
A notebook and writing implements: I recommend handwriting first, typing second. But do what works best for you. Pen, paper, keyboard.
How are you qualified to do this work?
Thanks for asking.
I’ve got over 5 years of circle facilitation experience, over a decade of adult teaching experience and over 14 years of hands-on one-on-one healing experience.
Do you have sliding scale pricing?
I can reduce my rates for one person per circle. If you absolutely cannot afford this circle, I can either offer a up to 5 month payment plan (5x$133/month) or reduced rate. To inquire, please e-mail me at jaha@janellehardy.com
IMPORTANT: I do not record these sessions. We participate in real-time and I only have 10 spots per round.
Once you’re purchased a spot you’ll receive an e-mail with the Zoom call details.