Each week of my Writing in Good Company accountability group, I offer a question to reflect on. This is the question I ask on the eighth and final week of a session:
How do you celebrate your writing efforts, accomplishments, and successes?
After 30 minutes of quiet writing on that last day, at the end of the hour, I ask each person to make a list of all the things they accomplished over our time together. Including, very especially including, very small things: things we thought, or felt, or asked for, or showed up for, or tried for the first time.
We then share our accomplishments with each other. We celebrate together.
With the permission of the participants in the very first 8-week session of Writing in Good Company, here is a list of the wins — large and small — that we celebrated:
- Prioritized a commitment to saving one hour a week for writing
- Kept at it even when struggling, with exhaustion, depression, guilt, lack of inspiration, or just afternoon blahs
- Cancelled meetings in order to prioritize writing
- In various other ways made space to write and think and focus on one’s own projects
- Finished a research manuscript, or two
- Submitted a grant proposal, or two
- Finished a book chapter
- Submitted a proposal and syllabi for a new series of classes
- Figured out how to split one dissertation chapter into two
- Wrote (and delivered) presentations, transcribed materials into English from other languages, edited literature searches and thesis chapters for others
- Learned that short writing time can be useful
- Took breaks from writing to go for a walk or a run or to garden or to celebrate family and friends
- Asked for and received support from a colleague within the writing group
- Provided support to a colleague in the writing group
- Connected with another writer in the group for ad hoc daily writing sessions [aka body doubling]
- Joined two additional writing groups per week in addition to this one
- Felt a sense of movement, consistency, confidence, or space to think, which led to a new relationship to writing
- Felt a sense of community in writing
- Thought about starting a writing group of one’s own
- Learned from each other
- Celebrated each other
- Did A LOT of writing
Congratulations to all of the writers in good company!
As one person added to the Zoom chat at the end of our celebration:
“I have to go but just wanted to say I am very grateful to you all and I celebrate all of you and all of your efforts! Thank you for helping me find community!”
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Writing in Good Company is open to early-career professors, postdocs, graduate students, and others writing academic- and research-adjacent work. It is designed for women, people of color, first-generation Americans, and first-generation postgraduate students. Everyone is welcome. At this time, there is no cost to attend.
The next session of Writing in Good Company starts September 9, 2024.
Perhaps you’d like to join us.