This year I discovered two online writing spaces that have become a welcome part of my routine: Writers’ Hour with the London Writers’ Salon and the Friday Write-Ins hosted by Gotham Writers.
Writers’ Hour is wonderfully simple: writers meet online and spend the hour quietly working on their own projects, with the option of sharing in the chat what they are working on. I find that sense of shared focus surprisingly effective for settling quickly into the writing flow.
The Gotham Writers Write-Ins are more playful. A prompt is given, everyone writes for a short time, and volunteers can read their work aloud afterwards. I’ve found these sessions particularly inspiring. Some of the pieces I started there have already turned into small works of flash fiction, while others have sparked ideas for entirely new stories.