Here we are, at the end of Immersion. The final day of what I hope has been an awakening for your words.
Every year, the British writer Jill Dawson and I lead two retreats for writers we’ve mentored. One retreat takes place in-person and one online. Whether online or in-person, at the end of each retreat, we have a celebration event. Everyone dresses up and the retreatants read from their work and, sometimes, take the brave step of saying out loud how good they are. There is something so wondrous about simply marking your achievements. Those celebration events fill me with joy every time.
Could you, today, celebrate yourself? Could you read some of what you’ve written out loud, enjoying the sound of the words, enjoying the music of what you’ve made?
Or if that doesn’t chime with who you are, could you sit somewhere lovely and read over those words in quiet, pausing every couple of pages to mentally applaud yourself?
Allow yourself a day of whatever celebration looks like for you. If it’s picnicking with champagne, great. Or a zoom with friends. Or a long soak in the bath (this is my personal go-to for just about everything).
And building on that celebration: what would it be like if you built a practice of celebration? If every time you crossed off one of your tasks that we mentioned yesterday, you celebrated? Not every task deserves a champagne picnic – but a little dance at your desk, or a moment of acknowledgment and thanks to your own self might be in order.
So, now, celebrate yourself and all you’ve done. You showed up for yourself. You made some words exist that didn’t previously exist.
I’ll be cheering for you as you go on.
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We’d love to hear from you about what Immersion has done for you. If you’re further on in your work-in-progress and you’d like to apply to the Australian Writers Mentoring Program, to work with any of our amazing mentors (or if you simply want more information) you’ll find all the information you need here.
If you’re not already on it, I would love you to sign up to my personal mailing list here.
Most importantly, I hope you stay in the flow that you have found. Margo and I have loved being with you for the last seven weeks!
Although I feel a little sad that Immersion: Flow has finished, I am also looking forward to re-reading all of the emails and my responses to the prompts, which I looked forward to completing every day. As well I am keen to develop characters and my story structure stimulated by these sessions.
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and observations about the creative process with us, Kathryn. Your emphasis on the creative process and its importance in developing the writer as well as our writing has been stimulating and confidence-building for me.