The Myth of the Lone Creative
Creativity Thrives in Community! Join Our Live Salon December 13 at noon Central!
LIVE SALON on Zoom, Friday, Dec 13 at noon! Upgrade to participate (WITD live events & “backstage” content like Voice Memos, Video Notes & more are for paid members). Salon will include open mic readings, a literary game, and time for questions! Zoom link sent 2 hrs ahead; manage your subscription options here.
I’ve never been a joiner, and I used to be kind of proud of how I knew how to “go it alone.” Until about ten years ago, I thought of myself as an isolated creative type, and I even wrongly attributed some of my youthful writing successes to the fact that I kept my head down and my writing solitary. I believed it was the right and best and maybe even only way to make good art.
I was wrong.
In fact, if there is one thing I would change about my writing career, it would be low long it took me to discover the power of creative community. All those years I spent laboring under the “lone creative” myth not only cost me opportunities and delayed my artistic evolution, but also made me lonely.
Creativity thrives in community. And a creative community is far more than just a bunch of people. A real creative community is a living being in and of itself, a being that moves and breathes and not only ignites new ideas, but also feeds and sustains those ideas toward fruition with collective creative energy.
When I finally started finding and building creative community for myself by attending writing workshops, applying for MFAs, and teaching writing (yes, all at the same time!), my creative life went from black and white to technicolor overnight. Every single thing changed for the better, too, including my own writing.
Indeed, my belated discovery of the power of creative community is a big part of why Iaunched Writing in the Dark on Substack two years ago. It’s for you, yes, but it’s also for me, a way to deepen and expand my creative connection to others.
I love the creative community here. It’s life-changing.
And as the header of this post says, we’re about to celebrate the beauty of this community with a Live Salon on Zoom this Friday, December 13. We’ll have an open mic for micro readings and some time to ask real questions. More details are at the end of this post, including how to be sure you have access to the Salon (you’ll need a paid subscription).
To note, if you have been wanting to dip your toe into the more interactive elements of WITD (seasonal intensives, sharing work and encouragement in the comments, threads, salons, etc.) but are a little hesitant or have questions, please feel free to reach out to me directly. I’m always happy to hear from you and will do my best to answer questions!
So what is a salon, anyway?
I think of it as a gathering of creatives. In my wild imagination, our salons will someday pop up in cities and towns all over, and look like the kinds of parties where people do language, yes, but also share music and art and big new ideas.
Annika Barranti Klein explains salons this way in Book Riot:
A salon, named for the type of room in which they were often held (sala or salone is Italian for a reception hall or living room, translating literally to hall or lounge), was a place for people to exchange ideas. Those people were often, but not always, creative types, including artists and writers. These gatherings became popular during the Italian Renaissance in the 16th century and flourished during the French Enlightenment in the 17th century. The private nature of salons, compared with levees, allowed ideas to be shared without fear of the government — including ideas that might be critical of said government. Additionally, the private nature of salons made them common for women, who were most likely excluded from the levees. One of the many women who hosted literary salons in 17th century France was Madame d’Aulnoy, who led a truly wild life.
Alas, I know we can’t yet live up to whatever precedent was set by Madame d’Aulnoy, especially over Zoom! But I do find myself daydreaming about how to gather in increasingly creatively inspiring ways in the future. I actually have lots of ideas percolating for this year and next, including WITD: The CAMP this August (more on that very very soon)! But even now, our Zoom salons are surprisingly lovely: fun, moving, and memorable.
But if you’re mostly just here to read quietly—that is, if you have neither desire nor time to add to the creative ruckus here—I understand that down to the marrow of my bones. I feel your presence and your energy, too, including whenever anyone says, “I’ve been reading for a while, but this is my first time commenting.”
No matter what role you play in this place, I appreciate you. So much! This is the kindest, most supportive community I’ve ever been lucky enough to be a part of—while also being original, devoted, curious, and inventive. It seems like many of you feel the same. Here’s a small sampling of feedback from our 2024 Story Challenge:
Thank you so much Jeannine.Your brilliant teaching has steered me into a happier place. I couldn’t be more grateful to you and the other great writers I’ve met on here, whose encouragement also means so much. See you all in the next adventure.
May not get a chance to write my prompt and post it for a few days, but I wanted to be sure I dropped by the comments to say thank you for this post and all the generosity you bring to this intensive! I've really enjoyed writing with this fabulous community. and I have been WRITING—these prompts really helped me take a story in very early stages to a nearly complete draft!
These 12 weeks have been so important for me. Thank you, Jeannine, for helping to see how I could try writing a novel (am now on p. 33!).
Jeannie, the words thank you feel woefully inadequate to express the gratitude and appreciation I have for you and all you provide in your WITD Substack. The last twelve weeks have been filled with insightful lessons! In this week’s post, I absolutely love your statement, “Friends, writing is always a metaphor for life” and the words that immediately follow. My best writing comes when I relax, not push, when I play, not work (even though there is a time to push and work to bring the disjointed bits together). Looking forward to the Visceral Self Challenge in April as well as the weeks between now and then!
Thank you once again, Jeannine. I am so glad I did this challenge. It helped me get back to writing during a very difficult time in my life, and that is priceless.❤️
This Story Challenge has been such an inspiration and a source of deep pleasure and discovery, even writing through the hard stuff. Jeannine, you are such an incredibly generous and playful-deep teacher, I cannot thank you enough. Looking forward to our next intensive <3
To Join the Salon
So, finally (and again), here are the details on the upcoming Live Salon on Zoom. I hope lots of you will join.
In case you missed it in the header: our LIVE SALON on Zoom is Friday, December 13 at Noon CT and will include flash readings and time for questions.
Zoom link sent 2 hrs ahead to all paid members; manage your subscription options here & let us know you’re coming in the comments!).
We’ll keep the Zoom open for about an hour and a half unless we finish earlier, but I bet we’ll use up that time between folks who want to read + opening, closing & transitions, and I’m guessing we’ll have time for at least 15 readers, with names drawn randomly from the chat in real time.
Open mics are a great place to test your work and feel the energy of the listeners. Yes, that’s possible even over Zoom! I’ve been witnessing it since my first Zoom workshop in 2017. I would never have thought so, but it’s true.
Flash readings are fun specifically because they move so quickly! So you must have something you can read comfortably in three minutes or less! Please strictly time yourself in advance, and time yourself reading slowly, so that the reading is a pleasure for us to listen to. You don’t want to speed read in order to pack more into your three minutes. Make your small, incomplete offering count by reading it well.
Your reading should be from something that emerged from Writing in the Dark or Wednesday exercise, because this particular Salon is a celebration of the work we’ve been doing together.
We want to hear the work in the work.
Questions? Email us at writing@writinginthedark.org.
We can’t wait to celebrate with you!
Love,
Jeannine
Further Reading on Salons, For Fun
https://bookriot.com/literary-salon/
https://fairygodboss.com/career-topics/literary-salon
https://www.messynessychic.com/2019/10/22/the-not-so-lost-world-of-the-parisian-salon/