press a fresh candle into the spent one’s quivering flame

and tonight, we chat

Hi friends,

I’m writing to you at the end of what has been an emotionally, mentally and physically challenging week. The good kind of emotionally, mentally and physically challenging.

I was on an online writing retreat and — aside from taking annual leave from my day job — around the 10-5 of our online sessions, everything else was as normal. I was still mum. Still cook, cleaner and chauffeur. Still chief form-filler-outer; piano-practise-pusher. I was still teaching and mentoring. Still ironing out tricky bits of my manuscript. Still trying to exercise though this, I’ll admit, was daft since I’ve not quite shucked off January’s customary virus.

I didn’t do it all alone and I’m thankful for that, but there was still no escaping the challenge. Engaging in deep work in pockets of time between hanging washing, doing a food shop and remembering to collect your child from the bus stop demands a certain kind of mental code-switching that, at times, I really struggled with.

If you want to read about what it’s like to be on retreat, head to this post from last October, when I first met the 14 other writers I’m spending the next two years with on Arvon’s Advanced Writing Programme and the incredible tutors who are guiding us:

As it happens, a week-long writing retreat is characterised by a specific energy whether you’re physically away from home or not. Mondays and Tuesdays are high-energy days. You come in all revved-up and ready. The exercises and others’ responses inspire, stretch and challenge you.

On Wednesdays you wake later than you’d intended and you’re annoyed at yourself. A timed exercise you’d have smashed at the start of the week sees you stare at the blank page noticing, eventually, that the nagging pain in your palm is coming from the hollow nib of your propelling pencil. Did you know you were doing that to yourself? You can’t believe the week’s half-done and what have you got to show for it? You’ll never be as fluid as the other writers: free and easy like you tell your own students. You’ll pivot into teacher-mode that night after you’ve fed the family in shifts and taken a teenager to a Pilates class, hoping your own students experience Wednesday night as you did Monday morning.

Thursdays are the emotional climax of the week yet, despite already knowing this, you’re surprised by the crying that comes. Your tears aren’t really about the work, but the work is an easy target.

But then, late that night when the house is quiet, you sit in bed and scribble something new. It’s a first draft but you can tell it’s not bad. It comes fast and fluid. It feels fresh.

Where did that come from? It’s too late to wonder.

Friday comes and Thursday’s internal weather has blown over or moved outside of you, at least. Slates rumble overhead. Beyond the double-glazing the trampoline threatens to lift off; the bunny run does somersaults on the grass; the recycling bin skitters past your office window, its lid waving for help. You decide to ignore it all. You'll face up to the damage when it’s over.

You overdo the heart emoji as colleagues share their experiences of the week. The tears surprise you again, even though they’re as much a Friday thing as a Thursday thing.

At the end of the day you share what you scribbled the night before, not yet polished but now beyond a first draft. These three minutes of prose will find a place in a new chapter you’re writing though fewer than 24 hours ago, you doubted you’d write anything coherent again.

This, you remember now, is how it goes.

Late on Friday night, you return to your office. You take your pencil’s pointed nib to the page and press a fresh candle into the spent one’s quivering flame.

Members’ Chat Tonight 8pm GMT

For our first live chat we’re diving in with the question I pose each week: What Now? I shared a link to my About page last Sunday where I give the backstory to my Substack:

What Now? What now? What, NOW?

I find myself asking this question a lot. Perhaps because there are many flavours of “What now?”s in a day. There is the incredulous “What now?” in the face of teen cheek, the what is it this time? “What now?” and also the does it have to be RIGHT now “What now?” But more generally, the question reflects the ever-vigilant part of me that has spent the past 35 or so years with my head tilted back, in wait for some sort of “surprise”. It also speaks to the part of me that is – daily – saddened, shocked and yet also hopeful when faced with the reality of the world we live in.

To join us tonight, be on the app or the desktop site at 8pm GMT, or click the button below. Depending on your settings, you’ll also get an email alert to prompt you to hop in. I can’t wait to chat to you all.

And if you’re not yet a Member but fancy seeing what’s going on in that space, including tonight’s chat then here’s a code for a 7-day free trial:

https://lindsayjohnstone.substack.com/d3e1ff8e

Lindsay x