The Week Ahead
Monday, March 2 to Sunday, March 8. Your weekly line-up of events, activities, and deadlines for writers who crave inspiration, motivation, accountability, and the support of community.
Highlights
Imagine March: Storied Stories returns! 630pm Thursday, March 12 at Books, Inc. in Alameda. FREE. We love our live audience! Please come on over and be a part of this story time for grown-ups, featuring a collection of 5-minute stories read to you by the local authors who wrote them.
Write in Wine Country is shaping up to be all kinds of awesome. This writing retreat gives you all-day access to a lovely, large home in Sonoma County, which happens to be a short walk from a vibrant downtown and five minutes from my favorite winery. The area boasts a range of overnight accommodations if you don’t want to drive back to the Bay Area (about 2 hours) — from basic hotels to boutique luxury experiences. Register to write with us on Saturday or Sunday (or both) and get Friday’s wine tasting, afternoon writing session, dinner table discussion, and Proof of Write for free. $249/day or $459/weekend. No charge for Friday. Meals not included, but there will be snacks.
Click the button or email me for more info.
Events and activities affected by my new schedule, in short:
The Monday Write In (new time: 12-2pm), Late Night Write (still 7-10pm Tuesdays, but now no sessions on the 3rd Tuesday of the month), Tiny Retreats (a few date changes), and the journaling workshop (postponed), the June train retreat (date change), and the November train retreat (date choices).
Scroll down for more details.
I work with writers to establish, nurture, and maintain lifestyle choices that support their creative ambitions and desires.
Writing a book is not a sprint. It’s a marathon. It takes practice, stamina, and dedication. You know what else is a marathon? Building a blog, developing a Substack, penning a collection of short stories, and writing a series of mini memoirs. You name it — if it requires time, attention, and consistency on top of creativity and innovation for generative writing, dedication and persistence for revisions, and courage and confidence for sharing your work with the world — you need to make sure your lifestyle has room for all of it.
Conjuring a lifestyle that supports your creative endeavors out of thin air, let alone out of a lifestyle that already exists to cater to different kinds of demands, just ain’t easy. It takes a special kind of magic. Fortunately, I’ve been weaving all kinds of magic-making coaching exercises into a spellbook of sorts for several years now (seven? eight?), and I keep it with me, right here, right up my sleeve, at all times.
I’m quite good at it. My favorite kind of magic is when my clients practice lifestyle choices like they’re training for a marathon and then one day, out of the blue, they wake up and realize they have turned their creative dream into their very much real life.
It’s a good thing I keep the spellbook so handy, because if there was ever a day I needed a bunch of magic spells (creative problem-solving exercises) to pull the pieces of my life and lifestyle back together and weave them stronger than ever, it was every day in February.
The thing that happened in our family has the kind of consequences where most of us had to go back and tweak things in coming the year. For me, it meant going back to basics to rebuild the entire year, one month at a time. The first three months are in sharp relief, written in ink. The next couple of months are in pencil and all the rest are wisps of smoke I’m trying to keep hold of in some kind of container I can’t even picture yet.
I don’t mind telling you, I panicked. My thoughts and feelings were all over the place. And then something pretty shocking happened, right there in the middle of journaling about my fear. My own hand turned the pen into a magic wand and waved it across the paper in words that revealed I got this.
Relief swept through and made my knees go weak. I got this.
Not only did I realize I have the practical know-how and experience and inner fortitude to handle all this change, but I also realized I have the choice and the ability and the magic skills (so many magic skills) to take it all in stride. With grace. And dignity.
And turn it into the kind of benefit in my life that opens possibility and deepens connections. I like those benefits best.
Upon reflection in my Daily Pages journal, I figured out that I was already showing up with joy and energy, anticipating the delight that comes with spending time on this one particular pillar of my identity. For now, the hours I am hands-on Nana dominate the hours I am Coach Bronwyn or Author Bronwyn or Boss Lady Bronwyn or any other Bronwyn, let alone Social Life Bronwyn.
But that doesn’t mean the hours for those other sides of me go away. They just get a little smaller for a little while. The hours get smaller, not me or my roles. That’s an important distinction. When I thought parts of me had to shrink to accommodate change, all kinds of stress and resentment moved in and took over.
They moved right back out again the minute I took another look at reality and decided to lean into the knowledge that the parts of my identity that show up in other areas of my life are never under threat. They’re just too strong, too well developed.
If you have done any coaching with me, you know what I mean when I refer to root beliefs and the importance of having balanced voices in your head for those times things go according to the universe’s plan instead of yours (to say it politely).
I have been working hard for years (so many years) to isolate, address, and change my own damaging root beliefs about myself, not in some kind of a sprint to feel better in the moment, but in one hell of a marathon to change my life and the quality of existence.
That marathon training has made my core strong.
It’s not just me. I look around at my clients and I see how strong they have made their cores through the practical magic of my coaching spells. Oops! I mean coaching exercises — the practical magic of coaching exercises. Let’s not get crazy here <inserts big wink>.
I see how each of them have turned the scaffolding that propped them up at first as they began building their creative lifestyles, into solid steel framework around which everything else has its place and draws its own strength.
Change challenges us to figure out and face who we are at our core.
Before journaling, before coaching, before the marathon that built the core, I would stub my toe on change and tremble with fear. I would fall back into the warm embrace of beliefs that said I was not so I could not like it was a devotion.
When something didn’t work out, when a dream failed to gain purchase, I blamed myself and my inadequacies. I don’t know what I’m doing. I never finish what I start. Everything is working against me - that must mean I can’t do this. Etc. What a waste of time! Time I won’t get back.
If this is you, it’s time to practice the thoughts that build a lifestyle that redesign thoughts that reinforce lifestyle that all support creativity and joy and a new kind of knowing yourself.
Let’s chat about new beginnings. My email is bronwyn.coach@gmail.com
If you write for any reason, you are welcome in our community. We are all about support and encouragement. We see you. And we would love for you to join us. This is the link to the main community, where you can hang out, check us out, and move into engagement at your own pace, on your terms.
Not on Facebook? Let me know in the comments where to find you or email me for easy ways to get in on our gatherings.
Looking for a round-up of monthly events and activities?
Check out the calendar on my website:
Hyper-local, super productive, 4-hour writing retreat
Wade into the holiday season with a solid writing practice grounded in a couple of Tiny Retreats — because you deserve time with your muse. Put it on the family calendar ASAP so everyone knows not to interrupt.
There’s nothing quite like quietly writing in the company of other writers, with someone else facilitating time and responsibility to really feed your creative need. Come delight yourself with what you can get done with us on a Saturday morning.
Next three Tiny Retreats
In person and fabulous:
Saturday, March 21
Saturday, April 18
Saturday, May 16
10:00am-2:00pm]
$75 - includes one menu item and one beverage
PRO TIP: Book more than one, save money
Featuring
Four hours of structured writing time and guided focus
Inspiration, motivation, and accountability tailored specifically to you and your needs on this day.
Optional 1:1 private session with the coach (hey! that’s me)
Feedback on your work
Help moving through writers block
Workshopping on request
A plan for next steps
Invitation to an exclusive Proof of Write.
WEEKLY SCHEDULE:
1. The Monday Write In
Gather with us at the beginning of the week at a cute coffee shop on the west end. We write in their quiet, shaded back patio in small groups of two and three.
Mondays: Noon-2:00pm PST
The Local - 1333 Park Street, Alameda CA
Free - you buy your own food and drink
Comment to request membership in RSVP text thread*
2. Elevenses
Join our weekly in-person gathering to discuss writing, the writing life, and your WIP with people who know what you’re talking about, feel your pain, and delight in your success.
Tuesdays: 11:00am-1:00pm PST. Members only (membership is free)
Free - you buy your own food and drink
3. The Late Night Write
Jump online to write in the company of other writers. Borrow their focus and flow, lose yourself in parallel play, and benefit from body doubling without having to leave your home. Join when you can, leave when you have to.
Tuesdays: 7:00-10:00pm PST. (excluding the 3rd Tuesday of the month))
Comment to request membership in RSVP text thread*
4. The Wednesday Write In
Start your day off with a hot cup of coffee and put some strong writing energy back into the middle of your week. Write Ins are in-person writing sessions where we gather to write quietly in each other's company.
Wednesdays: 10:00am-Noon PST. Host: Erica Peck
Free - You buy your own food and drink
5. The Top Secret Write Along
The Top Secret Write Along is an online writing session where we gather to write quietly in each other’s company without having to leave the house.
Fridays: Private Paid Subscriber Perk!**
If you’re a paid subscriber, comment for membership in RSVP text thread*
6. Proof of Write
Wrap up the weekend and kick off the week with positive feedback.
This online gathering is a safe place for writers to share up to 5 minutes of raw, rough, or polished work written the previous week. Every participant must give - and then sit still to receive - positive feedback.
Proof of Write
8pm on Zoom Sundays (meeting ID provided with RSVP text or email)
Free for members. (Membership is free)
Subject to core member availability; minimum 4 writers
hosted by Bronwyn or the next available core member
Zoom ID provided on request
Comment to request membership in RSVP text thread
In keeping with the spirit and intentions of providing a safe space for writers from all walks of life writing about all kinds of life experiences through imagined fiction and recounted reality, I have made two modifications to the original Proof of Write protocols:
Content warnings are expected from every single writer in attendance, regardless of whether they are considered necessary. This practice has the benefit of inviting the writer to consider message, theme, and presentation of even the most benign ideas and story lines to the potential reader. The more the writer knows about their work, the more readily they can tempt others to read it.
If a writer is uncomfortable sharing deeply personal or provocative work in mixed company, an arrangement can be made ahead of time to move them and members they are comfortable sharing with into a breakout room for their reading, with understanding and acceptance from everyone present.
7. Lend Me Your Voice ~ private until 2026
Paid subscriber perk! This is your chance to listen to how your words land in a reader’s mind and mouth, where the text flows, where it stumbles, whether your voice and tone hit the way you wanted, and more.
You and a handful of other writers show up, each with 800 words of a book, a blog, or a short story that has already been edited (original work only). You throw your work in the pile. We go around the room taking turns picking up what someone else has thrown down and reading it out loud for everyone to enjoy.
Why do we do it? It’s one thing to read your own work in your head. It’s another thing to read it out loud, when you know what’s coming and you can control emphasis, nuance, and flow. It’s quite another thing to hear someone else read it out loud when they have no idea what’s coming up on the page.
This exercise is 75%*** learning about how your words land with your readers and 25%*** learning how to get comfortable reading out loud to a live audience.
2026 Retreats - click here for the list
Next up:
Write in Wine Country - Wine tasting on Friday for the early birds and a lovely, big house with plenty of comfortable writing situations for the weekend. This retreat is for day-trippers who want to sleep at home or a nearby hotel. Wine tasting, Friday afternoon writing, and Friday evening activities are available for no additional cost to writers who register for a full Saturday or Sunday. April 24-26. $249/day or $459 for the weekend.
CHANGES:
Write on Track - new date: Friday, June 19-Monday, June 22
Write on the Rails - date TBD between:
Friday, November 6-Monday, November 9
Friday, November 13-Monday, November 16
Labs & Workshops
The Shift: Journaling for Metamorphosis
Postponed
Inspiration, Motivation, & Accountability!
For writing tips and habit hacks from your friendly neighborhood writing + creativity coach (hey! that’s me!), sneak peeks at what’s going on in my workshops, examples of my own writing, and exclusive invitations to secret writing situations, consider a paid subscription.
Gratuitous Kitty Shot!
Don’t tell me not to touch it. I do what I want.
*Group text threads are for women and non-binary writers.
**Paid subscribers receive exclusive invitations to Top Secret Write Alongs and their in-person counterparts, the Top Secret Write Ins.
***These percentages are 100% arbitrary.