come journal: an online event
plus, the book that I can't stop thinking about & a writing prompt
Hi All,
I’m excited to share that on March 22, I’ll be doing an online guided journaling event. Journaling is a key part of my creative practice and it’s been a recurring dream of mine to create a space where we can solo deep dive whilst also being in community.
It will be held on Zoom on Saturday at 4 PM GMT, which I believe is 9 AM BST and 12EST (but please double check!) and you can get your tickets via Eventbrite here:
Paid subscribers to First Draft, please note: you get a 50% off code if you’d like to attend (code will be found at the bottom of this email). And if you’re not a paid subscriber and finances are a barrier for you to attend, please reply to this email and assistance will be provided.
When I returned to London after spending time in California over the holidays, I started thinking a lot about community. How to create it. How to be intentional about it. How to keep working towards it even when, most times, it feels easier and simpler to stay at home.
(The best thing I’ve read recently about how difficult but necessary creating community is was a substack post by
who writes Small Things Growing. You can read her essay here. I particularly loved her thoughts on how the work of community building is often uncomfortable, and sometimes even boring. Do it anyway.)For weeks a low-lift and very me fantasy kept returning to me. It’s a weeknight, I’m in my PJs, my kid has finally fallen asleep after an elaborate and inventive bedtime struggle, and instead of using that strange dead time at the end of the night when I’m too exhausted to do anything other than scroll, an intimate group of friends and family come over, we eat good snacks, drink hot tea, and journal together. That was it, that was the whole fantasy, and it kept coming back. Eventually I couldn’t ignore it any longer and I texted a small group, telling them I know it sounded strange, but did they want to come over and journal?
I was surprised how many responded positively. And then even more surprised at how simple and lovely the night ended up being. I wrote a few prompts and put them in a bowl. I made a playlist. Bought some cheese and crackers and boiled some tea. And then we gathered for a few hours and we wrote, pausing between prompts to discuss what was coming up.
The journaling zoom I’m doing is born from that same kind of desire. To gather intentionally, to be in a community reflective of my interests, to sit in silence for a time, and then come back together. Join if you’d like. And if you can’t, keep scrolling for one of the journaling prompts we did that night.
I’m a little more than halfway through Omar El Akkad’s powerful force of a book, ONE DAY, EVERYONE WILL HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AGAINST THIS.
I want everyone to read this book. I’m absorbing it slowly and carefully, feeling full of gratitude at Omar’s ability to finally put to words the rage, grief, disbelief, helplessness and heartbreak of witnessing the genocide in Gaza, as well as the complete loss of faith in the West for its failures, its blatant hypocrisy, its complicity.
It’s an important book, a necessary one. And it’s brilliantly written. If you can, please support it and spread the word.
Here are just a few passages from early on in ONE DAY, EVERYONE WILL HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AGAINST THIS:
What is a situation that you have to be in from time to time that gives you a sense of unease/ dread/ anxiety?
Or, who is a person you have to interact with that gives you that feeling?
What about this person or situation bothers you?
Might be more interesting to ask yourself: who do you become in this dynamic or context that bothers you?
What might you need to do internally to help yourself?
What might you need to do externally?
These are the kind of prompts that we’ll be diving into on March 22. Get your tickets here. And if you’re coming, feel free to reply to this email with a ‘theme’ or question you want to write towards.
