While Writers’ Gym weekly member sessions continue over the summer, I’m making a point of being as gloriously inactive as I can. ‘Inactive’ in the productivity sense, that is. Meaning I’m awarding myself adult-life brownie points for how long I can spend with whatever I’m in the mood for reading – or writing – or strumming – or repotting – and making a note on my to-do list to quieten my brain instead of leaping off the sofa to feed my ‘need’ to be productive.
Because I don’t need to be productive. I don’t need to make the ‘most’ of my holiday time. I need to be rested. I need to the do the things that are why we do the productivity.
So, here are a few things to explore while I’m not ‘here’ this month:
The Writers’ Gym podcast
Yesterday’s episode features novelist, academic and instant Sunday Times Bestselling author Sarah Brooks. We’re three weeks into the current series so if you’re not already following, there are many more author interviews to enjoy on Spotify, Apple, Podbean or wherever you get your podcasts:
Creative Confidence
Creative confidence is about narrowing the gap between who we are on the inside and who we are in our careers and personal lives. It celebrates what’s already been achieved, recognises what we’re growing beyond, and asks what we want to create next. Join me for my one and only non-Writers’ Gym workshop of August: final places available here.
Guest Blogging for Little Lies
Really, really honoured to be asked to guest-blog for my favourite brand’s tenth birthday.
Coaching is a space to think and feel out loud. It holds a mirror up to who we are and who we choose to become, letting us see what the life we want looks like and, most of all, our power to make it our reality. It’s about showing up as our full selves – in life, in work and in art. So, for me, was Little Lies: a clothing brand inspired by the music I love, which I discovered through my best friend during lockdown. Little Lies has always been a space for dreaming, which is where our authentic goals are formed, and the business Jade and Stuart created from dreams I share has been an example to me of creativity, collaboration and celebration: Read my first post (of three) for Little Lies here.
– and all things Rachel Knightley Coaching in July 2025
My clearest memory of Brownies is receiving my Highway Badge. The three Journey badges – Footpath, Roadway, Highway – meant filling each paving stone in the guide’s road-shaped diagram, colouring in each stone to represent things you achieved along the way (I forget what literally any of them were), until you reached the paving stone closest to the horizon.
The memory starts with descending horror. Ahead of my final Brownies meeting, I realised I hadn’t finished my Highway and it was tonight or never. I filled in what was needed (again, zero memory of what that was) and, that night, shook hands with Brown Owl (not an obscure LSD reference: the leaders were named after various woodland animals), giving and receiving the Brownie salute before she gave me the badge I (or probably my mother; I had no interest in the sewing badge) would sew on my Brownie sash.
But the reason I think this memory stuck so clearly is not just because it was my last badge, last meeting or last salute. It was the first time I realised life wasn’t going to be about people reliably reminding, reassuring or telling you what you were supposed to do. Still less rewarding what you did or punishing you didn’t. The rewards and punishments of adult life would be internal, for what we did and – perhaps more unnervingly – what we didn’t do.
This highlights a reason I think coaching answers so much in so many of us. In coaching, the client sets the objectives. There may not be badges to sew on, but there are emotional and practical goals which are chosen as a result of an authentic understanding of who that individual is and how they want to experience being themselves in personal and professional life. It’s accountability and support, from a trusted thinking partner. It keeps you committing to being as you as you can be.
Adult life doesn’t give out badges to recognise achievement (though, as I write this, perhaps I’m explaining to myself clearer than ever before why many of my friends love tattoos so much). That’s probably a good thing. Thought habits are about committing to maintenance, not putting trophies on a shelf. That said, here are two suggestions of adult Brownie badges I’ve recognised and mentally awarded myself recently:
These two are just suggestions – I’d love to know what you’d choose for yours?
The Boundaries Badge The Brownie/adult recognises that being a good relative/friend/colleague/partner/etc does not mean – and never has meant – being available twenty-four hours a day, or saying yes to everything that’s asked. They acknowledge it is for them and not the world to state (and repeat, and repeat, and repeat without diluting) their boundary, what they will and will not do/be/offer.
The Empowerer Badge The Brownie/adult commits to replacing jumping in to ‘rescue’ their relative/friend/colleague/partner/etc with how they might empower them. By changing status from rescuer to empowerer, they change the other’s status from helplessness to growth. Both are then in a stronger position next time, plus the rescuer-turned-empowerer’s self-esteem grows through no longer needing to be needed, but knowing they are truly wanted.
The Responder Badge Instead of firing back a text message, email or remark that relieves their feelings for a moment but heightens the conflict (and, with it, their feelings) in the long-run, the Brownie/adult listens to their instant reaction, asks what fears and wishes it’s based on, and then imagines what the tester/emailer does and doesn’t see about how they perceive the situation. This badge is one for writers in particular – when we know every character is just as real as we are, we can see more clearly beyond what we fear people think of us to what their own fears might be about themselves. Resulting The Compassion Badge…
Creative Confidence at Olympic Studios, 10am-11.30am Friday 4 July The greatest breakthroughs in our professional and personal lives come not from finding the right answers – but asking the right questions. Explore the joys of creative confidence, and the tools it offers to help us turn apparently insolvable problems into positive, authentic choices. Click here.
Powerful Fiction and Memoir (Week 3 of 4) | Olympic Studios | Saturday 5 July Truthful, powerful writing goes so much deeper than whether or not a story ‘really happened’. My four sessions at the legendary Olympic Studios explore the tools and techniques of powerful prose. Writers of all levels of experience will build creative confidence, explore and express their unique memory and imagination and create truthful, compelling memoir and fiction. If you are a member of Olympic Studios or the Writers’ Gym and do not have your discount code, please email info@rachelknightley.comBook here.
Blue sky above Olympic Studios Barnes, Powerful Fiction and Memoir 21 June, photo by Marc Morris. Guitar and me, photo by Craig Davies. Guest speaker at Roehampton University, photo by Jerome Boyd-Mauncell.
I am a professional writer, a qualified writing and confidence coach, and an absolute beginner guitarist. The guitar and I have shared a stop-start relationship (almost exclusively stop) since I was about seven. This year is the first time in my life I understood why.
With my new teacher, I’ve started having fun.
There’s a lot of reasons for that, the main ones being that he recognises and articulates what I find hard, notices and acknowledges big and small improvements alike, praises both, and praises effort when achievement (small or big) isn’t there yet. He knows, and as a result I know, it being hard is absolutely okay. That there’s nothing more honourable about finding something easy all the time than there is about daring to keep showing up and working for it. I feel seen, I feel valued. I love the lessons and I love how proud of myself I feel. How powerful. And, as a result, learning gets easier and faster.
Don’t get me wrong, the feelings of frustration – Other people are so much better at this – Why does this have to be so hard? – What’s wrong with me? – haven’t gone away. But I love the environment. It feels safe. And celebratory. And I love the reason I’m doing it. I love the songs we’re sharing; both the ones I can (slightly, gradually, nearly) play and the ones I might one day but can’t right now. I love talking about music and celebrating music. I love realising that just as I’d put music on my own pedestal, other people might put the kind of writing and speaking that’s my ‘normal’ on theirs.
I thought about this yesterday during a chance conversation with a very lovely person I met at Olympic Studios where I’m coaching Powerful Fiction and Memoir on Saturday afternoons. When that person heard I coached public speaking, and that speaking in public is an enjoyable part of my job, they asked – in a manner equally impressed and horrified – HOW?
Longtime readers – and everyone having confidence coaching with me – will know when I was in my early twenties I had to go onstage at a primary school to talk about the drama club I was starting. A sea of identical tiny, poker-faced children stared unblinking (okay, okay, some of them probably blinked but I swear that was the extent of the humanity I saw in that moment) up at me as I walked onstage, announced by the headteacher but feeling less like one of the adults dotted around the edges of the ocean of expressionless faces and more like the child I’d been last time I was in such a hall. But in the few steps from the side of the hall to the centre of the stage, here is the thought that landed in my head at the centre of all the imposter syndrome: ‘Just because I feel like this, doesn’t mean that’s what they see.’ Indeed, just because it was how I felt about my own inadequacy, didn’t mean I was right.
Welcome the audience to your space
I made eye contact with every face I possibly could. I thought about everything I’d ever loved about drama, every mental and emotional (as well as vocational) door it had ever opened for me. I felt the smile that rose to my face as a result of the thoughts inside my head, and I didn’t get in its way. And then I said, to every one of those faces, ‘Who knows what drama is?’
Not the most original line in the world. But a true one. An honest question. And my face showed I meant it. And every hand went up as every face lit with understanding and interest. And my talk to that audience became a talk, in the true sense. An offering and a receiving. We connected. I ran the drama club in that school for about a decade before I moved on to what I’m doing now.
Talking to our audience needs one thing and one thing only. It’s not perfect scripting. It’s not perfect confidence. It’s the knowledge everyone out there is as scared as we could possibly be on one of our worst days. Everyone else out might look perfectly confident, a proper adult etc, but if we’re looking at the world like that there’s a damn good chance they are too. And our opportunity is to welcome that audience into our physical and mental space. Just as we’d offer them a cup of tea in our living room, it’s not about the exact word or gesture we choose. It’s deeper and truer than that. It’s the message that comes through us, not ourselves as the messenger. So all we need is to connect, and that takes six words: welcome the audience to your space.
‘Love is the answer,’ said John Lennon (who I’ve been playing recently, and recognisably). ‘All you need is love,’ said the Beatles (ditto). Like anything short (and I speak as a five footer), it’s easier to overlook or oversimplify how simple the truth sometimes is. If you want to do something well, if you want it to feel natural and easy, find a place of truth and start from that truth. I love drama and I wanted drama club to do for those children what drama had done for me. I love music and I’m prepared to keep showing up for it. If you’re speaking to an audience, then either they themselves, or your subject, or probably both, are there because of a shared love: shared experience, shared values, or other shared intention. Be there for that love. The more you accept that, the more calmly and involvedly you’ll move through the material. Like asking friends or family who wants tea and who wants coffee, it’s not about the exact words. It’s about what’s underneath them. We don’t need you to be perfect. We want you to be you. Welcome the audience to your space, as only you can.
Explore coaching for business and personal life here.
Write, Sip, Connect | Century Club | 7pm-8.30pm, Friday 27 June An evening workshop with cocktails, where creativity meets confidence in a unique blend of writing exercises, discussion, and networking. Whether you’re an experienced writer, just starting out, or simply curious about the craft, this event is designed to boost your word count, confidence, and connections—all in a relaxed and welcoming space. Book here.
Powerful Fiction and Memoir (Week 2 of 4) | Olympic Studios | 28 June Truthful, powerful writing goes so much deeper than whether or not a story ‘really happened’. My four sessions at the legendary Olympic Studios explore the tools and techniques of powerful prose. Writers of all levels of experience will build creative confidence, explore and express their unique memory and imagination and create truthful, compelling memoir and fiction. If you are a member of Olympic Studios or the Writers’ Gym and do not have your discount code, please email info@rachelknightley.comBook here.
The Writers’ Gym is part of Rachel Knightley Coaching: creative confidence for life, work and art: www.rachelknightley.com
You don’t have to be a member to join a Writers’ Gym session: visit here. But if you’d like to access our weekly programme for free, and receive 30% off all our other events, ask about membership: thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com
This is Amerie (and me, and Amerie’s mum). Amerie is, among other accolades, the teenager who introduced me to one of my favourite thriller writers. Which felt like a bit of a reward from the universe for always pushing for my under-eighteen clients to pick subjects they love for their public speaking assignments. It’s a wonderful way of remembering life is not about guessing the right answer; it’s about discovering your own. So that’s how I discovered Alice Feeney – and why we’re pictured at her event at Waterstones Piccadilly, which turned out to be one of the most supportive and inspiring author talks I’ve ever seen – and also why, yesterday, I got the news Amerie achieved a distinction along with her Gold Medal in Speaking in Public.
I met Amerie as a six-year-old. Our coaching was nominally about reciting poems and prose for LAMDA Exams, but really it was about what all coaching is about: true confidence. Which doesn’t mean being the loudest person in the room; it means learning to listen to who you truly are.
Most of you reading this newsletter – whether you’re a business and personal coaching client, the parent/guardian of one of my under-eighteen clients, or a member of the Writers’ Gym – know what comes out through our voice begins in our mindset. The writing and speaking skills Amerie developed through our sessions mean she’ll not only know how to express herself, but know the importance of making sure it’s her true self she’s expressing. Writing and speaking, the world’s most transferable life skills, will be part of literally any job or career, every conversation. Creative confidence is a huge investment in being who you are and creating your life as a true reflection of who you are and what you want to be.
I could not be more proud of you, Amerie. Here’s to whatever future you choose to create.
Explore coaching for business and personal life here.
Truthful, powerful writing goes so much deeper than whether or not a story ‘really happened’. My four sessions at the legendary Olympic Studios explore the tools and techniques of powerful prose. Writers of all levels of experience will build creative confidence, explore and express their unique memory and imagination and create truthful, compelling memoir and fiction. If you are a member of Olympic Studios or the Writers’ Gym and do not have your discount code, please email info@rachelknightley.comBook here.
Write, Sip, Connect at the Century Club, Soho | 7pm-8.30pm, Friday 27 June An evening workshop with cocktails, where creativity meets confidence in a unique blend of writing exercises, discussion, and networking. Whether you’re an experienced writer, just starting out, or simply curious about the craft, this event is designed to boost your word count, confidence, and connections—all in a relaxed and welcoming space. Book here. Coffee & Creativity at Olympic Studios, Barnes | 10-11.30am, Friday 4 July Grow your connections, build motivation and unlock inspiration in this creative networking event with a difference. Dr Rachel’s gently powerful facilitation provides a space to turn curiosity into creativity, wherever you are in your writing journey.Click here.
The Writers’ Gym is part of Rachel Knightley Coaching: creative confidence for life, work and art: www.rachelknightley.com
You don’t have to be a member to join a Writers’ Gym session: visit here. But if you’d like to access our weekly programme for free, and receive 30% off all our other events, ask about membership: thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com
Why tastes, scents and colours aren’t a waste of our money or time
During one or other of the lockdowns, I made myself a promise: I would never again buy a drink I didn’t want, or the drink I thought I was supposed to want in any given situation.
I posted a picture of mine and my friend’s cocktails on Instagram on Saturday because a) they were pretty.
But really I posted because b) I want to model the behaviour of investing in the temporary.
Part of the intrinsic pleasure in pretty drinks is they tend to be those I share with friends (at least, friends also like pretty drinks). They represent catching up, connection. They represent being in the moment. Being present. A pocket of slower time within the rush.
Whatever we’re doing, we do better when we take the time to step back into the now, unapologetically.
They’re this reminder to me:
Take the moments. Don’t wait to have finished the next job to celebrate being where – and who – you are already, right now.
Coffee & Creativity | 1-2.30pm, Wednesday 11 June Hosted by Writers’ Gym staff member, Bella Barbieri.Grab a coffee and have a mid-week chat, a write and then another chat with your fellow creatives. Free for members: type your discount code where indicated.Click here.
The Writing Room is members-only through June, while I’m away for work on Monday mornings. However, we’ll be introducing weekly membership soon so if you’d like to hear about that now, just ask thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com
Truthful, powerful writing goes so much deeper than whether or not a story ‘really happened’. My four sessions at the legendary Olympic Studios explore the tools and techniques of powerful prose. Writers of all levels of experience will build creative confidence, explore and express their unique memory and imagination and create truthful, compelling memoir and fiction. Book here.
If you are a member of Olympic Studios or the Writers’ Gym and do not have your discount code, please email info@rachelknightley.com
Powerful Fiction and Memoir (4-week course) | 2-3.30pm, Saturday 21 June Truthful, powerful writing goes so much deeper than whether or not a story ‘really happened’. Join me at the legendary Olympic Studios to explore the tools and techniques of powerful prose. Writers of all levels of experience will build creative confidence, explore and express their unique memory and imagination and create truthful, compelling memoir and fiction.Click here.
Green Ink Sponsored Write for Macmillan Cancer Support
Every year, a team of published authors and developing writers in the Writers’ Gym(including people who are both) come together to write on a theme inspired by Macmillan Cancer Support’s mission: quality of life for everyone affected by cancer. What happens is this: Writers donate a day of time. They’re not sponsored by their word count. They are sponsored for their time. There’s no obligation of any kind because a writing prompt is a diving board, not a dive (this was the event that inspired that First Draft Commandment in Your Creative Writing Toolkit. Other authors’ Sponsored Write pieces have become new books and other things, after the six-month world-exclusive period where what we write belongs solely to our readers: anybody who sponsors us on this page). Click any of the links to visit the page, and please share the full link with friends, family, followers and whoever is next to you at the bus stop, because literally every donation counts (and gets you an exclusive digital anthology, 48 hours after the writing day ends): https://www.justgiving.com/page/somewhere-thats-green
The Writers’ Gym is part of Rachel Knightley Coaching: creative confidence for life, work and art: www.rachelknightley.com
You don’t have to be a member to join a Writers’ Gym session: visit here. But if you’d like to access our weekly programme for free, and receive 30% off all our other events, ask about membership: thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com
I’m a sucker for the beginning of a month. Any month, really, though Spring probably has the edge. It’s partly thanks to my grandfather’s desk calendar, which lives beside me on my desk and makes a particularly pleasing click as you change date, or whir as you scroll (left cog) through the months and (right cog) through the days. Each month begins not with a ‘1’ but with a visual drum roll:
Turn top towards yourself.
Click.
Turn slowly.
Click.
Change month.
Click.
Then the ‘1’ appears and time has officially started moving.
And, like a clean journal page (or, even better, the new sheet of stickers each time I start a new edition of my favourite journal), I promise myself Iwill be each morning from now on. Not journalling on and off, always realising how much better my mental health and productivity is on days when and do than when I don’t, but every day.
I’m not really looking success in the perfectionist, absolute-consistent-progress-or-I- get-to-waste-energy-berating-myself form. Real success is noticing when (not if) my practice falls off, noticing (not judging) why and seeing what makes me enjoy climbing back on. That’s where the real progress and the real joy is.
Speaking of joy, especially the kind that comes from knowing who you are and learning how to empower yourself, that’s exactly why I’m so enormously proud of Writers’ Gym member Stacey Warner. Stacey’s non-fiction piece, Autistic Joy, has been Commended in the South Warwickshire Literary Festival:
“It explores the moments up until diagnosis and how diagnosis led me to holding deep gratitude for how much I get to love things,” Stacey told us in our members’ chat group, “and the other positives of diagnosis. I wanted to write something that highlights the way autism was sneakily always there but wanted something that centred joy, not just the struggle – thought those are valid too.”
It’s not just Stacey’s result that has me beaming as I write this. It’s the whole year preceding it. I’ve witnessed Stacey taking the opportunities for creative confidence building, personal reflection, goal-setting and habit-forming that makes time and space for writing (and whatever ignites joy in life) off the pedestal and into the routine. Instead of waiting to feel worthy, we live our lives now. And the time to start can always be today.
Truthful, powerful writing goes so much deeper than whether or not a story ‘really happened’. My four sessions at the legendary Olympic Studios explore the tools and techniques of powerful prose. Writers of all levels of experience will build creative confidence, explore and express their unique memory and imagination and create truthful, compelling memoir and fiction. Book here.
If you are a member of Olympic Studios or the Writers’ Gym and do not have your discount code, please email info@rachelknightley.com
Coffee & Creativity | 1-2.30pm, Wednesday 4 June Hosted by Writers’ Gym staff member, Bella Barbieri.Grab a coffee and have a mid-week chat, a write and then another chat with your fellow creatives. Free for members: type your discount code where indicated.Click here.
The Writing Room is going to be members-only through June, while I’m away for work on Monday mornings. However, we’ll be introducing weekly membership soon so if you’d like to hear about that now, just ask thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com
Powerful Fiction and Memoir (4-week course) | 2-3.30pm, Saturday 21 June Truthful, powerful writing goes so much deeper than whether or not a story ‘really happened’. Join me at the legendary Olympic Studios to explore the tools and techniques of powerful prose. Writers of all levels of experience will build creative confidence, explore and express their unique memory and imagination and create truthful, compelling memoir and fiction.Click here.
Green Ink Sponsored Write has begun
Every year, a team of published authors and developing writers in the Writers’ Gym(including people who are both) come together to write on a theme inspired by Macmillan Cancer Support’s mission: quality of life for everyone affected by cancer. What happens is this: Writers donate a day of time. They’re not sponsored by their word count. They are sponsored for their time. There’s no obligation of any kind because a writing prompt is a diving board, not a dive (this was the event that inspired that First Draft Commandment in Your Creative Writing Toolkit. Other authors’ Sponsored Write pieces have become new books and other things, after the six-month world-exclusive period where what we write belongs solely to our readers: anybody who sponsors us on this page). Click any of the links to visit the page, and please share the full link with friends, family, followers and whoever is next to you at the bus stop, because literally every donation counts (and gets you an exclusive digital anthology, 48 hours after the writing day ends):
The Writers’ Gym is part of Rachel Knightley Coaching: creative confidence for life, work and art: www.rachelknightley.com
You don’t have to be a member to join a Writers’ Gym session: visit here. But if you’d like to access our weekly programme for free, and receive 30% off all our other events, ask about membership: thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com
Thank you Rhianna Pratchett for our brilliant title and Elspeth Hannen for our beautiful cover image: this year’s Green Ink Sponsored Write for Macmillan Cancer Support is a world I truly cannot wait to explore.
But I have to wait – because it’s a sponsored write, so it’s strictly 48 hours from creation to publication!
What is a Sponsored Write?
Every year, a team of published authors and developing writers in the Writers’ Gym(including people who are both) come together to write on a theme inspired by Macmillan Cancer Support’s mission: quality of life for everyone affected by cancer.
There’s usually something green in the title, green being Macmillan’s colour – and why the Writers’ Gym was originally Green Ink Writers’ Gym. Macmillan was the chosen charity of my friend Sophie Porter (1982-2007) and, eighteen later, Green Ink Sponsored Write is an established yearly event. I also write in memory of my grandfather, Abraham Banks, and my uncles, David and Jeremy Banks.
For 2025, our title, created by Rhianna Pratchett, is:
Writers donate a day of time. They’re not sponsored by their word count. They are sponsored for their time. There’s no obligation of any kind because a writing prompt is a diving board, not a dive (this was the event that inspired that First Draft Commandment in Your Creative Writing Toolkit. Other authors’ Sponsored Write pieces have become new books and other things, after the six-month world-exclusive period where what we write belongs solely to our readers: anybody who sponsors us on this page).
Click any of the links to visit the page, and please share the full link with friends, family, followers and whoever is next to you at the bus stop, because literally every donation counts (and gets you an exclusive digital anthology, 48 hours after the writing day ends):
Coffee & Creativity | 1-2.30pm, Wednesday 28 May Hosted by Writers’ Gym staff member, Bella Barbieri.Grab a coffee and have a mid-week chat, a write and then another chat with your fellow creatives. Free for members: type your discount code where indicated.Click here.
Writing Room EXTRA | 4.30pm-7pm, Thursday 29 May Members only: please check Voxer messages.
Powerful Fiction and Memoir (4-week course) | 2-3.30pm, Saturday 21 June Truthful, powerful writing goes so much deeper than whether or not a story ‘really happened’. Join me at the legendary Olympic Studios to explore the tools and techniques of powerful prose. Writers of all levels of experience will build creative confidence, explore and express their unique memory and imagination and create truthful, compelling memoir and fiction.Click here.
The Writers’ Gym is part of Rachel Knightley Coaching: creative confidence for life, work and art: www.rachelknightley.com
You don’t have to be a member to join a Writers’ Gym session: visit here. But if you’d like to access our weekly programme for free, and receive 30% off all our other events, ask about membership: thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com
Writer or reader, friend or family: we want connection, not perfection.
A very lovely public speaking coaching client of mine stopped in the middle of their speech this week. They’d made a small error with the words they’d prepared. When I encouraged them to continue, they did. But the enthusiasm, the involvement in the subject they loved, had gone.
After we’d rehearsed the rest, I mentioned I’d noticed a drop in involvement. I asked them to share what had gone through their head at the time.
They said that although they understood what I mean when I say the words aren’t as important as the meaning – so, if a sentence goes off track, we think about what we mean and find a way through to the next – they didn’t believe they could be happy with the speech if the words were ‘wrong’.
‘So,’ I asked, ‘unless every word you say is exactly the one you prepared, you stop connecting with the audience?’
They thought about this, and I saw them seeing the irony. After all, our words are there because of the audience. If us falling short of a standard only we can see is more real to us than our audience relationship – we’re not really there for the audience at all.
‘Perfect’ was Never on the Menu
When we rehearsed the speech again, and when my client inevitably (because humans aren’t answerphones and authentic speeches are always slightly different each time) said words in a different order to what they’d prepared, each wobble became an opportunity to tighten their focus on the audience and strengthen their connection as a result. They looked deeper into their mental image of who the audience were and why this mattered for them. Their facial expression and body language were lighter. They were remembering what they loved and why they believed their words belonged in the world. Instead of mentally and emotionally looking back over their shoulder at what was ‘wrong’, they gave a unique and authentic delivery, especially for who it was meant for.
Writer or reader, friend or family, audience member or fellow performer, we’ll take connection over perfection any day. Trying to show up for us as perfect is no good to us at all. Choose vulnerability over perfection, and we’ll know we can too.
Join me at Olympic Studios, southwest London, to develop your writing and creative confidence Saturdays 21 June, 28 June, 5 July and 12 July:
Powerful Fiction and Memoir (4-week course) | 2-3.30pm, Saturday 21 June Truthful, powerful writing goes so much deeper than whether or not a story ‘really happened’. Join me at the legendary Olympic Studios to explore the tools and techniques of powerful prose. Writers of all levels of experience will build creative confidence, explore and express their unique memory and imagination and create truthful, compelling memoir and fiction.Click here.
The Writers’ Gym is part of Rachel Knightley Coaching: creative confidence for life, work and art: www.rachelknightley.com
You don’t have to be a member to join a Writers’ Gym session: visit here. But if you’d like to access our weekly programme for free, and receive 30% off all our other events, ask about membership: thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com
Last Thursday on Instagram I posted three fish, and the words Aim to be interested, not interesting. The fish are a reference to David Lynch and curiosity. The words started life as one of five First Draft Commandments in Your Creative Writing Toolkit. They’ve now also become the name of the first week of a six-week course I’m piloting at Roehampton University in creative confidence for writing and speaking (if you’re a paid subscriber you’ll receive Week 1 next week). Something quite beautiful happened in the first few minutes and that’s why I want to tell you about them.
After I’d introduced myself, I handed everybody an invisible magic wand and requested they be as selfish as possible. What do you most want from today? What do you most want me to be able to give you?
One of the answers was about writer’s block: I‘ve got this idea; I’ve wanted to write it for ages; nothing’s happening.
Another was about introductions: I’ve got to go to interviews. I want to make a good impression. How do I do that?
The answer to both these questions was modelled before I even began by one of the people who’d asked.
As I’d introduced myself and the course, talking about what happy, authentic audience relationships can feel like (the connection between writer/speaker and reader/watcher/listener; how the more we feel it’s a relationship the more it becomes one), I’d noticed such a lovely energy as one particular student sat listening. The clingfilm of nervousness, frozen-over distance when he came into the room had peeled off. Safe in the audience, unselfconsciously enjoying hearing what I was saying, he was himself. And I saw him, and I grew in confidence as he saw me. It was an exchange of energy. It made him better at what he needed to do and me better at what I needed to do.
So I told them what that felt like for me, and for any speaker z- whether the audience ever know the difference they’re making or not.
Same with interviews, first dates – and blank pages. You don’t have to show up perfect. Perfect was never on the menu.
When we want to make a good impression, we do get creative in one reliable way: anxiety. Mentally detailed stories of what might happen – so clear to us we convince ourselves they’re going to happen or already are happening – in full technicolour: all the reasons we’re unworthy and someone else would be better.
We can take the fear at face value; misread it as a signal we shouldn’t or don’t deserve to be here. Or we can lean into the curiosity.
All anyone wants from you – interviewer, date, reader, viewer, listener – is honest attention. We’ve always got two choices: fear curiosity. We can take the fear at face value; misread it as a signal we shouldn’t or don’t deserve to be here. Or we can lean into the curiosity. What about this situation speaks to me. What do I really want? What is it that it speaks to in me? How and to whom do I say so?
When we can bring ourselves to focus on curiosity about what we think and feel, who we are and want to grow to be – we look beyond what do they think of my hair, what if they think I’m stupid, what if they think I’m not good enough and realise the other person isn’t dwelling on any of those things. They’re just trying to find out about us, and our world, same as we’re wondering about theirs. We create the world as we want it to be by believing in it, investing in it, taking the first conversational step towards it. By offering authenticity, we create the circumstances where we get curiosity back.
That’s what I mean by aiming to be interested, not interesting. You don’t need to impress us; you don’t need to convince us of anything. You need to be present, in all your imperfection and all your curiosity.
The Writing Room | 11am-1pm Monday 12 May No expectations, no readings, just an open chat box and ten minutes’ (totally optional) chat together at the end. Free to everyone on my mailing list (if you’re reading this, that’s you!). Click here.
Coffee & Creativity | 1-2.30pm Wednesday 14 May Quality writing time and excellent company! Grab a coffee and have a mid-week chat, a write and then another chat with your fellow creatives. Free for members: type your discount code where indicated.Click here.
Writing Room EXTRA | 6-7pm Thursday 15 May Members only: please check Voxer messages.
Monthly Writing Workout | 6.30-7.30pm Tuesday 27 May Grab a workout at the Writers’ Gym. Creative exercises, supportive discussion, specific tips and techniques for the writer you are. A guaranteed boost to your knowledge, enthusiasm, confidence and your word-count!Click here.
The Writers’ Gym is part of Rachel Knightley Coaching: creative confidence for life, work and art. www.rachelknightley.com
You don’t have to be a member to join a Writers’ Gym session: visit here. But if you’d like to access our weekly programme for free, and receive 30% off all our other events, ask about membership at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com
It’s rare to meet a freelance writer who’s in it for the pitching. Writing? Sure. Putting yourself on the line to say how great your idea is and why you’re the person out there to write it? Every-muscle-in-the-body-tensingly horrible.
Except when, occasionally, it isn’t.
I have a piece in one of my favourite magazines this week. That one was easy to pitch.
Because I love the magazine? No, that’s as likely to make me more self-conscious and self-critical.
Because of my iron self-confidence? Hahahahahahahahaha! No.
Because I’m getting used to pitching? Mmm… maybe, a bit, but no, that’s not why.
It’s because I was really ****ing angry.
The Magic Trick, Part 1: Knowing Something Needs to Be Said
Creative Confidence: Coaching for Writers in the current issue of Writing Magazine is there because of something another writer – one of their regulars – said in print a year or so ago (because – spoiler alert for what reality’s really got up its sleeve for you when you’re pitching – even when it goes well, that can be how long between writing the words and seeing them in print). What I was angry about was that regular columnist stated that writing coaching was ‘mostly teaching’.
The editor of Writing Magazine is, in my e-experience, a very nice person. But even if that weren’t true, my pitch would still have been friendly. It would be on the side of the person I’m writing to. Because anger, when used helpfully, is about achieving the change that’s needed in the world, not simply relieving the emotion of anger. It’s not about you blasting at someone, it’s about you making the change the world deserves; that moves us all in the right direction.
The Magic Trick, Part 2: Knowing It’s Up to You to Say It
Next time pitching feels too much like putting yourself on the line, make a list of things that annoy you. Or make you feel trapped or misrepresented or unheard.
If someone were going to pay you to really illustrate one of those, which would you want it to be?
What would your piece be saying? Who to? What would it be asking? Of whom?
Write it.
For yourself first.
Then edit and rewrite it, for all of us.
Because your truth (even if it’s in a year or so) has a place in the slightly-better world it’s up to all of us to create.
The Writing Room | 11am-1pm Monday 5 May Free for everyone on my mailing list (if you’re reading this, that’s you!). No expectations, no readings, just an open chat box and ten minutes’ (totally optional) chat together at the end.Click here.
Writing Magic Realism | 1pm-2.30pm Tuesday 6 May From literary and genre fiction to poetry, film and TV, magic realism expresses a deeper truth to the everyday. It lets our themes and emotions take physical form, and allows the worlds we live in within our own minds to become real places in the worlds we create. Click here.
Coffee & Creativity | 1-2.30pm Wednesday 7 May Hosted by Writers’ Gym staff member, Bella Barbieri.Quality writing time and excellent company! Grab a coffee and have a mid-week chat, a write and then another chat with your fellow creatives. Free for members: type your discount code where indicated.Click here.
Writing Room EXTRA | 6-7pm Thursday 8 May Members only: please check Voxer messages.
Monthly Writing Workout | 6.30-7.30pm Tuesday 27 May Grab a workout at the Writers’ Gym. Creative exercises, supportive discussion, specific tips and techniques for the writer you are. A guaranteed boost to your knowledge, enthusiasm, confidence and your word-count!Click here.
The Writers’ Gym is part of Rachel Knightley Coaching: creative confidence for life, work and art. www.rachelknightley.com
You don’t have to be a member to join a Writers’ Gym session: visit here. But if you’d like to access our weekly programme for free, and receive 30% off all our other events, ask about membership at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com
