Unwind with words...
...writing through the senses
I talk a lot on here about the reality of ‘writing life’, alongside sharing the intricacies and mysteries around getting a book actually published. I find writing life, on the whole, wonderful - with flexibility and freedom beyond anything I’ve ever experienced before. Even though it wasn’t exactly an ‘active’ choice for me to live this way (it being foisted upon me by health limitations), I am genuinely grateful that this is now what I ‘do’.
There are certainly challenges that I encounter within writing life, as there are in any line of work, and having had this as my sole occupation for several months now, the things that really stand out for me are:
Making a living - many on here write extremely openly about how hard it is to make a living as a writer, and consequently operate as ‘multi-hyphenates’ with a variety of income sources to make things work. I can highly recommend
’s Substack for some brilliantly honest and insightful articles on this subject. I talk about how I manage this in The Book Deal Diaries, and so this isn’t something I’m going to focus on today, the other, however is:Loneliness - we have a deep seated need for human connection.
wrote a beautiful piece on this recently, and this yearning for connection really is my writing raison d’etre. Lemon Soul is ALL about finding like-minded others and helping you to know you are not alone. The communities that exist here on Substack are real, and can form deep connections. Just this week I received an email that said:‘Reading your words have felt like a lighthouse showing the way…because every now and again, you stumble across a writer…and it all just seems possible again’
This is what makes writing and showing up on here so special.
The icing on the cake? Well for me, that would be having an actual sofa to enable us to meet up face-to-face. To share our thoughts and ideas over cups of tea and favourite biscuits (you’d be hard pressed to beat a custard cream.) To bounce around ideas, provide support, go off topic and just have a giggle. What fun that would be…
As an extrovert, who definitely gets energy from being around people, I do still miss the days of going into an office and having banter - chatting over the day to day minutiae, dissecting the latest ‘must watch’ TV, bonding over office politics… so recently I added something into my not insubstantial pile of things to do, and decided to host a creative writing event, with real humans in a real space.
I have been toying with doing this for some time as I have so many ideas to share, and I really believe that we are all creative. I often hear people say ‘nah, I don’t have a creative bone in my body’, but it’s simply not true. We are ALL creative…it just so often gets buried beneath several ‘adulting’ layers of obligation, commitment, work, parenting and lack of time. My vision was to host an evening of gentle writing activities in a gorgeous local venue, for people to come along and shed their day, pick up a pen, and allow their creativity to flow (aided with plentiful wine and cheese).
I chose the theme of this particular evening as ‘Writing Through the Senses’, exploring the meaning of each sense, followed by a writing activity relating to that sense.
The turnout was brilliant, and it was such a delight to see people explore parts of their capabilities that they didn’t believe they had. Feedback ranged from “you opened me up” to “led by our senses we wrote prose, poetry, streams of consciousness and indulged in a creative exploration that was just so relaxing.”
I think quite a few people surprised themselves - reading aloud their work, sharing poems with strangers - allowing themselves to be vulnerable right there in the moment. There really was a heartwarming feel about the whole experience and that peculiar magic that comes when we allow ourselves to connect. I do plan to do some more of these in person over the next couple of months, and also perhaps bring them to Substack as a series of live online creative writing evening events. I wonder if this would be of interest? (Although if it’s an online one you may have to ‘bring your own cheese’). If you live in the Surrey area of the UK - perhaps come along in person…
There is so much joy in the personal connection. I’d love to bring more of this into the Lemon Soul community.
I went to bed with a happy heart, although admittedly I was so floored by it that I was still in bed a day and a half later (that’s the way my health rolls!), but I would do it again? In a heartbeat.
I’d love you to join me.
As always,
Love & lemons 💕🍋
Em xx
[A PDF of the writing activities and readings that I used throughout the evening is attached at the bottom for my paid community only - I hope you can treat yourself to some time to work through them, at your own pace. I’d love to hear how you get on.]
If you want to learn more about the book publication process (what it’s REALLY like) then you can read all about that on my dedicated Book Deal Diaries series. This includes the ultimate VIDEO MASTERCLASS ‘From Book Inception to Book Deal Moment’. Paid subscribers have access to all of it.
You can pre-order BREAKING WAVES here: