by Charis Joy Jackson
Photos by Rumman Amin
Imagine with me, if you will…
A romantic landscape of jagged, snow-capped mountains, meadows filled with wildflowers of every colour, a cozy stone cottage, warm lights filling the windows from the fireplace, complete with a welcoming, lazy trail of smoke rising from the chimney.
Inside you find the perfect writing nook, walls covered in ideas for stories, maps of your made up worlds, a bankers lamp — green glass and bronze base — magically lighting the space just right. Your desktop computer at the ready, screen open to whatever you use to write — for me it’s a blank off-white Scrivener Project, the left side full of different coloured binders and folders of what’s already been written.
Did I mention this place comes complete with a chef? And cleaner? Heck, let’s throw a gardener in there too, and set the cottage on the end of a farm, with a friendly woodland behind it. In the woods are many twisting pathways to stretch your legs from time to time. Oh and, I reckon there’s a cat. You can choose a dog if you like, but at my little writing escape there would most definitely be a cat. A big fluffy one, who loooooves cuddles and has the loudest purr.
Actually, I’d probably have a dog there too. A border collie, sharp as a tack and highly trained to go on walks, without a lead, through the meadow or wood with me, and who would most definitely get completely muddy from the river running through both.
I don’t know about you, but this type of setting calls to me. And if life with all its obstacles and restraints allowed, and finances weren’t ever an issue, I’d probably be living there right now, if such a place exists.
To me, it sounds like the perfect place to have a balanced writing life.
But I don’t think even the most prolific writers have such a place. The great Stephen King talks about how his writing desk now sits in a corner of his office, while the rest is filled with couches and games and more for his family to come and be present there.
When I first began to dream of writing as a career, I thought it would be a fairly solitary existence. Quiet and contemplative. And maybe even a bit lonely. Which while it sounds perfect to get the writing done, isn’t the best for this ambivert who needs plenty of time with people and plenty of time without.
And to my delight, I’ve discovered that the best writers, who I also have the privilege of knowing, flourish when they recognise writing is not a solitary job. They flourish, and so do I, when I have two things: accountability and community.
ACCOUNTABILITY
Sometimes I get the sense that this word "accountability" is seen through a lens of dry and boring responsibility. Truthfully, it’s kinda hard for me to describe it this way, because I’ve come to see it as something living, invigorating. Something that helps keep me at it on days that are more conducive to curling up on the couch with a good book or show.
For example, this morning.
I’m staying at a friends place in Wales, the great wide outdoors is definitely beckoning me, but today is cold and grey. I know there are haunts I want to explore, but my sleepy brain is telling me it’s a day to "just rest".
Only problem?
It’s not a Day Off, it’s a Work Day.
And I’m on a Work Week Away. So I mustn’t listen to the sleepy voice in my head, and I mustn’t get distracted by playing ball with the black slobber machine currently lying at my feet. There’s time for that later, right now, I need to write. Specifically this blog. It’s to be published at the end of the week, so it’s time.
And thankfully, beautiful accountability was there in the form of a zoom writing group.
This morning, a mixture of writers jumped onto a zoom call, where we gave a brief sentence about what we were going to be working on in the next hour, and then muted our microphones, turned off our videos and began writing. It may sound a bit silly to jump on a zoom call where the majority of time is spent in absolute silence but it works.
It’s enough of a nudge to get “stuck in” and enjoy the thing I love most. Even though I love it the most, I often have a plethora of excuses for why I can’t write just now but I’ll get to it later. This bit of accountability helps to keep those pesky excuses at bay and it also gives me a community.
COMMUNITY
While the beauty of that cabin in the wild sounds wonderful, the picture here, also reveals how lonely it could be.
I’ll never forget the day, sitting in my grandpa’s green Mercedes, the leather seats squeaking under me as I answered my momma’s question of “Did you enjoy the movie?” I spent literally an hour and a half explaining every scene, every piece of dialogue, and every joke I could remember. The film was Men in Black, with Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. Honestly, I think I've only watched it a handful of times since but, at the time, I remembered so much of the film I could just watch it on replay in my minds eye.
Why? Because I loved it. Loved the story-line, loved the creativity of the world building, the quirky characters and aliens and, well, everything.
If we love a thing, the passion for it tends to flow out of us — especially if we find someone else who likes it too.
It’s the same for what we write. At least it has been for me.
When I still lived in Australia, I’d sit at my local cafe and spend hours writing. But when I got home, I’d immediately seize whoever happened to be there and ask if I could read them what I just wrote. Thankfully, my lovely housemates and friends at, what we called, “Lower Buckingham House” were very gracious to me. They’d start chopping dinner while I read. And boy, oh boy, did I appreciate the little hmmm’s when a sentence made them think. Or the little chuckle when one of my characters said something or did something cheeky.
I can’t tell you how much I miss this.
If you have it, I hope you take a moment to stop and appreciate it because it’s special to have people in your life that support you in this way.
While I no longer have the privilege of living in Australia with my friends at Lower Buck, I do have a zoom group every Friday, where I gather with poets, novelists, non-fiction authors and more as we take time to fellowship, share about our projects, and even read what we’ve written.
It’s encouraging, and instructive.
And as writers, we need this community.
It helps us to sharpen our words, sentences and paragraphs. What may seem obvious to us, may not to our reader, and our writing community can help to point these things out to us. Likewise, they can help you know where you’ve written something glorious.
When I discover someone is a writer, I light up and turn into a small child asking all the questions. I know some people can be a bit private about their work, but I find the more mature you become as a writer, the more you’re willing to share — and turn into a five-year old full of excitement for what you’re creating. Not worrying or carrying that someone might steal your idea. Chances are, if it’s good, they’ll wish they’d thought of it first but won’t write it because you already did.
The above might not be the case for everyone and being open about your work isn’t the only path to maturity, so please don’t read that and think you’re not a mature writer. What I'm trying to say is, it’s good to bounce your ideas off someone to make sure what you’re writing makes sense.
I hope the next time you meet a writer you welcome them into your writing community and accountability group. And …. if you don’t have one, I highly recommend you start looking, I think you’ll find you write more — I have.
Being someone who’s had that community, moved to a new city, and had to basically “start over”, I’ve got some tips for anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation. What’s worked for me isn’t guaranteed to work for you but at least it’ll give you an idea of where to start and hopefully get those creative juices flowing for you.
Social Media — While there are positive and negative things about platforms like Facebook and Instagram, I’ve discovered a wealth of good, as a tool these platforms helped me find new writing groups in my local area. A quick search with my town name and “writing group” pulled up a few suggestions for me, which I was able to plug into.
Local Book Shops — one of my favourite towns to visit locally has an indie book shop with a thriving writing community. There are workshops, readings, and more. While I haven’t had the opportunity to plug into this just yet, as there is a cost for it, I’m soooo excited for the possibilities that come with knowing it’s right there. You may find the same.
Coffee Hangs — God is so faithful in providing for us, I’ve especially found Him to be such a help in having my path randomly cross several writers. When people find out I write, I often get, “Oh, do you know So-and-so? They’re a writer too.” And if I know the person, you better believe I’m like a dog on the hunt, quick to text and ask if they want to meet up for a coffee and talk about writing. If I don’t know the person, I ask my friend to introduce me. Like now, please.
Can’t Find One, Start Your Own — when I first started to really pursue writing again in my late 20’s, I’d take the train into Brisbane's CBD, to the one cafe I knew that had outlets, and which at the time, happened to be in the old Regent Cinema on Queen Street Mall. I’d get an iced coffee in summer or a mocha in winter and sit there and write for hours.
One day, a good friend of mine, who was also writing, texted with the news he’d found a place with outlets. He’d been searching high and low, and found one in a museum, I think. I wrote back and mentioned mine had not only outlets but coffee too.
Needless to say, he joined me that next Saturday.
We didn’t know it then, but we’d begun the initial stages of forming our very own writing group, which we’d end up calling "Regent Writers". While we couldn’t financially sustain going into the CBD every weekend, we did continue to meet every Saturday, and two became three, and four, and at the height of the Regent Writers reign, we filled an entire room at our local cafe with something like fifteen writers, and their laptops, of course.
FINAL THOUGHTS
While I still dream of one day having that stone cottage somewhere, I am glad I’ve learned to love, and utilise, these gifts of accountability and community as a writer. I hope it encourages you too.
Here’s to doing this writing thing together, to encourage and challenge each other to grow in our gifts and skills, and to use it to the fullness God designed us for.
Charis Joy Jackson is as a full-time missionary with Youth With A Mission (YWAM), an international Christian missions movement. Currently located in a village just north of London, she spends as much time in the great outdoors as the rainy weather will allow. In her spare time, she writes speculative fiction & captures her crazy dreams in print. Literally. Read Too Bright: And other stories inspired by The Dreamcatcher's JournalShe's also begun an initiative called A Minute Of Stillness, where she reflects on what God’s creation teaches us about slowing down. A recovering scrolling addict, she found the few reels telling her to "stop scrolling" and "go to bed" helped give that extra nudge to get off her phone and either go outside, back to work or, indeed, go to bed.
C h a r i s J o y J a c k s o n
