If you think back over the course of your life (or even just back over the last few weeks), I bet you can think of many examples when words have made you feel terrible and, hopefully, many examples when they’ve made you feel great?
I’m thinking of the time a little over a year ago when I was happily strolling down the promenade into town from the house where I was cat-sitting. A couple of weeks earlier, on another cat-sitting assignment, I’d found what I believed to be the best coat in the entire world in a charity shop in Hay-On-Wye.
It was khaki (I had always wanted a khaki coat), it was really warm, and it was only £10. Never mind that it was a men’s size medium and I’m a size eight lady. Yes, it looked really rather large but still, it was perfect!
So there I was, waltzing down the promenade, when I passed a group of teenage boys on their bikes and one of them shouted, “What the f**k is she wearing?”
My khaki coat dream was shattered into a thousand million pieces and I felt the sting of tears in my eyes as the little girl inside me hung her head in embarrassment.
I marched on and told myself that it didn’t matter what they thought. Still, those words hurt.
And then I think back to that time my friend Symon sent me a gift with a note that read, “Thank you for being you” and I burst into tears of gratitude because it was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment in time. He made my day. Really, my entire week!
Words can be used to:
Spread hate, spread lies, bring someone down, divide, make war, hurt, destroy, induce fear, cause stress.
Or they can be used to:
Heal, spread kindness, spread joy, spread truth, uplift, encourage, inspire, soothe, change things for the better, make beauty, bring peace.
Everything in the second list is what the 30-day writing extravaganza is all about; using the written word for a positive purpose, whatever that might mean for you.
Some ideas for what you might write (I’m sure you can think of many more!):
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Thirty letters to thirty friends and loved ones telling them what they mean to you.
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Thirty blog posts.
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Thirty poems.
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Thirty confessionals to an imaginary entity, getting a lot of stuff off your chest.
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Thirty (very) short stories.
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Thirty songs.
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Thirty jokes (I would be the worst at this one!!).
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Thirty notes of gratitude.
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Thirty blessings…or thirty prayers.
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Thirty letters for your child to read when they’ve grown up.
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Thirty things you wish you’d said to [insert important person in your life here].
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Thirty email pitches for your work.
Reasons you might want to join:
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You’re in a lockdown low and having a creative focus for the next 30-days would do you the world of good.
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You kind-of-sort-of-sometimes consider yourself a writer or wonder whether you could be any good and you’d like to make a commitment to practice and see what you discover.
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You used to write all the time but somewhere along the way you stopped and you’d love to reignite that spark.
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You’ve been meaning to write X, Y or Z for ages but just never seem to get around to giving it any attention.
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You simply love to write and you like the idea of a fun, 30-day project complete with daily notes of encouragement and tips.
The journey starts on the 1st February and the last day to enrol is Saturday, 30th January at 5pm UK time.
To see all the details and book your space, click here.
This is going to be a lot of fun and everyone is welcome! Do you have a friend who’d like to do this too? You can encourage one another along the way…
Love and courage,
Leah