Women Weaving Words

We are pleased to announce that a regular monthly writing group is soon to start. Meeting on the second Monday of each month (diary permitting): we shall gather at Watford Quakers Meeting House, Church Road, Watford. Starting at 09.30 and writing (on / off) until 12.30 A variety of themes and prompts will be offered in order to keep you inspired. All are welcome. Please check the events page for more information.

I started following  @WomenWriters on Twitter recently, and have found them to offer some really inspiring posts. One such post I read this morning, which you may find encouraging to read. I think we can get overwhelmed with having to prove ourselves as writers. Before anything is published, we are a writer first and foremost. The most important aspect is the writing - publishing isn't for everyone, but it comes much further along the line. If writing for pleasure or with more serious aspirations, we need to start by believing in ourselves. One last thing : you don't need to have published work to be classified as a writer. Here's the link to the article: Seven ways to take yourself seriously as a writer

I don't know about you, but when I'm online, I often see snippets of things here and there, or an image may provoke a writing idea. I either have to copy / bookmark the page to come back to it, in order to save it before it's long gone in my browsing history. Recently I discovered Evernote - this is still in its trial phase with me, but is proving to be very useful, especially given that I can sync my devices. Therefore I can save items on my phone, and the same clips will appear on my desktop version. Great! I can jot down notes - they are saved instantly, so you don't even have to worry about having pressed a save button. In addition, I have the extension on Google Chrome which allows me to clip as well as do many other things with items I discover whilst online. As a writer, it can be an invaluable tool, and it also becomes a mobile journal as well. Irrespective the genre you write in, you can organise all your snippets into suitable files for ...

On Friday I attended WOW (Women of the World) Festival at London's Southbank. An annual event that hosts workshops and sessions on so many aspects of being a woman as well as the difficulties and prejudices we face. One of the sessions I attended: The Genius Gap - Women & Creativity , was very compelling and inspiring. Creativity is how we employ our imagination, make use of inner resources, bring together amazing projects through writing, song, design, dance, music, sewing. The list is endless. An issue that many of us face is finding the time, or having time amidst EVERYTHING else that we need to still take care of. As a result, we have to work so much harder to be noticed or even try to achieve a semblance of what our male counterparts appear to. Our social system is geared towards male creativity. It doesn't compromise for needing to finish earlier in order to complete the school run. Difficulty in seeing something through due to a child's illness. The list o...

A rich morning of writing was experienced at Watford Women's Centre today. Women developed a sense of trust incredibly quickly and were very open to sharing their writing experiences. Hearing the sound of pens scratching across paper was so very heart-warming.

"In a study led by researchers in New Zealand, older adults who had undergone a biopsy were able to heal more quickly if they wrote about traumatic events and their emotions relating to those events, than other biopsy patients who simply wrote about daily activities" ... [Read the rest of this article here ]

Following the success of my writing and yoga workshop in Stamford in January, several women showed an interest in meeting again to further their writing activities. I met with three of the women at Cafe au Chocolat in Stamford again recently and we had a wonderful morning of writing from prompts and then sharing our work. We were all so absorbed that we didn't notice how busy the cafe had got during our time there. It was such a pleasure to bring them together - so much so, they've made plans to meet regularly to write, which is what it's all about really. Also pleased to have been made an honorary member of their writing group, so that whenever I'm in the area again, I hope to be able to join them. "Listening, witnessing, role modeling, reacting, deepening, mirroring, laughing, crying, grieving, drawing upon experience, and sharing the wisdom of experience, women in circles support each other." ~ Jean Shinoda Bolen ~