For the past month and change I’ve been hitting up a Meetup group on Wednesday mornings from 7-9am. An introvert at heart, I was immediately drawn to the title of the group — Show Up, Shut Up and Write.
In my brain it translated to: writing with other humans, caffeine, minimal small-talk and no pressure to share your deepest darkest work in the awkward “circle of trust.” (Aside: I’m not trying to knock the sharing aspect of many writing groups — I really do think it’s part of the craft, but it’s just not the space or writing genre I’m in currently.)
Asides aside, I was very pleasantly surprised to discover a really cool group of people who love writing, are super nice, care about each other, joke around, and get down to business every single time. It’s been as small as 2 of us and as big as 10 or 12. It checks a few of my boxes in this season and I’m grateful:
accountability — to humans and writing consistently (they know when you’re missing),
human interaction that is fun and occasionally really meaningful,
getting up and out in the morning (and using that natural focus time for good),
a work activity that isn’t a bank-breaker (good, bottomless coffee for 4 bucks),
finding my “tribe” of writers,
discovery — hearing bits and pieces of what people are working on is pretty fascinating because it’s so diverse and expands my possibility horizon
getting connected to opportunities (co-working spaces, tips, free services, etc.)
inspiration (great vibe, positive peer pressure, awesome working tunes to crank to).
I could go one about each of these bullets for a while, but let me just pick two. I’ll start with the wide range of people and what they’re working on. Humans are fascinatingly diverse.
One is a medical illustrator whose drawings and writing are used in gory court trials and she’s writing what is akin to a text book for lawyers to use in prosecution and defense. Yeah, woah!
Another is an engineer who is in the construction industry, a new dad, a great quote collector and a huge guitar jam band fan.
Another is a career businessman 30 years into his industry and killing it. He got a hankering to write a book a year or two ago and more recently, to move into career coaching as a new venture, while still holding down the fort at his current company.
Lastly there’s a guy who runs a Physical Therapy (PT) practice and gets in whenever he can to write up content for his business blog — interviewing clients and dropping great PT knowledge and tips.
Fascinating, right? All love writing. All crawl out of bed earlier than normal on a Wednesday to write. All have day jobs.
This leads us to the second point I want to highlight — the one about Tribe. I’ve been seeking out wisdom from different sources lately. Blogs, books, podcasts, counselors and friends alike have all converged around this idea of tribe, whether they call it that or not. Tribe. It’s about finding people who love what you love and spending time with them. Because community, inspiration, shared purpose, the marketplace of ideas, connections. And more important than all the things you can “get,” it’s about being you and offering your unique self to the community. I haven’t done this point justice yet but…
Fifty minutes are up so it’s time for a coffee refill and some welcome time-bound chatter (10 minutes) until our final 50-minute writing haul.
To wrap this up, Tom, Annie, Liz, Don, Jim (and all the other names I still haven’t learned because it takes me forever), thanks for you.
To The Molecule Effect, thanks for the good bevs, tunes and chill place to be.
Have a good day. Shut up and do what you love when you can. (And do it with people who love it too).