Do you need a friend (who writes)?
a chance to connect with fellow writers
Hi writer friends,
This is One More Question, a newsletter for nonfiction writers who want to keep doing the work, even when it’s really hard. And lately, it’s really hard… most of the time.
This issue is all about something I started about a month ago, but people loved it so I’m going to keep it going! Friends Who Write is an opportunity
If you’re new here, you can get in on Friends Who Write, along essays and opportunities for writers. Just drop your name in that box below.
Friends Who Write: Let’s Connect
TL;DR: We should all try to remember the details of this time by writing emails to each other. Skips to “How to participate” for specifics.
I have an idea that I really think you’re going to enjoy. It’s a way for writers to connect with other writers. It’s an exercise in honesty and preservation. Here’s how the idea came about.
A friend of mine recently told me that she and her husband are recording nightly conversations while quarantined in their Brooklyn apartment. This practice in preserving the day-to-day was inspired by a conversation between George Saunders and Cheryl Strayed in Strayed’s new podcast, Sugar Calling, in which Saunders shares a letter he wrote to his students after their last day together in a physical classroom.
"We are, and especially you are, the generation that is going to have to help us make sense of this and recover afterwards...Are you keeping records of the emails and texts you're getting, the thoughts you're having, the way your hearts and minds are reacting to this strange new way of living? It's all important."
I love that. It’s all important.
It seems a popular instinct and an even more popular suggestion: we must find ways to remember this strange, scary, occasionally hopeful time. We must collect the details that are bound to disappear amidst headlines, anxiety, and fear.
(We must collect the pieces of broken glass.)
Because everything seems significant when you’re in it. And you might think, how could I possibly forget? But we do. We forget so much.
Last week I watched an older man with disheveled gray hair and a slightly sloping back stand on the mound of an empty baseball diamond next to a bucket full of balls and hurl one after another over home plate. Will I remember how they arched a little too high and then dropped a little too short and how I watched his face for frustration but found only conviction? After the bucket was empty, the balls scattered about in the dirt, he shuffled around the bases and I wondered if he was imagining the cheer of a crowd. Will I remember wet grass trimmings were stuck to my feet as I walked home from the park that day?
I will because I’m writing it here. I’m writing it to you.
So here’s the idea. I want you to write about this experience—any aspect of these past weeks of isolation and coming out of isolation and anything you’ve been thinking or feeling lately. But not just for yourself. And not in the polished way you might write something for publication about this time.
I want you to write an email to another writer—a writer you don’t know.
And I will facilitate this exchange of emails.
Writing a letter to someone is a popular writing prompt. It was our first assignment on that writing retreat I wrote about last week: Write a letter to someone about something you’ve struggled to say. There’s a unique value in this angle, because we must provide the details that will help someone else understand. And in working out how best to communicate those things, we preserve the details we might otherwise forget, and we hopefully derive some kind of order which can easily be missed if we don’t take the time to consider these moments thoughtfully.
And if you’re going to be vulnerable with a stranger in an email—someone who doesn’t know you and can receive what you give them at face value, without any assumptions or associations that are inevitable from loved ones—then you ought to receive one, too. Which is why I think it’s so perfect for writers to write to other writers—strangers with some shared appreciation for the power of words and stories. Not only will you have your own recorded reflection on something, you’ll have theirs to keep, too.
This isn’t going to be a chain of correspondence or a commitment to writing once a week or anything like that. Just one email sent. One email received. And if you find that you’d like to respond and keep writing to this person, I think that’s wonderful. If not, that’s just fine, too.
(I not-so-secretly hope and suspect that two emails will turn into many more and that people might find new friends, mentors, and collaborators out of this exercise. But really, truly, no pressure.)
How to Participate in Friends Who Write
Hit reply to this email and tell me you’d like to participate in Friends Who Write. Please also include the email you’d like me to use in the text of your reply. (It’s much easier to copy/paste that way.)
You’ll receive an email from me with an email address of another writer.
Write an email to that writer.
Hopefully make a new writer friend.
If you don’t hear from the person I connected you with after a week, let me know and I’ll pair you with someone else.
I’m going to provide some prompts. But you can also choose to write about anything that’s on your mind. You can ask questions, too. Make this email whatever it is you need right now.
Here are some prompts for those who find them helpful.
I saw/heard/read something recently that I can’t stop thinking about…
The thing I miss most about life before a pandemic is…
I’d really like to write about ________, but…
Lately I’m learning to appreciate…
What do you think about…
One thing I hope doesn’t go back to “normal” is…
I hope this exercise allows you to share something with another human, another writer—something that will help you make sense of something for yourself. I hope we can connect and help each other remember.
Sound good? Reply to this email and let me know if you’re in, and I’ll get back to you ASAP with the email address of a new friend who writes.
and One More Question…
What is one piece of writing you’re especially proud of, and why is that? What worked in this piece that you can apply to future stories? Reread it. Frame it. Share it with me! (Or in an email to your new friend who writes.)
I would love to keep introducing more and more writers for more and more writing connections. (Because honestly, our friends and family are probably sick of hearing about our work. ) So please share this with any writer friends who you think might be interested in participating.