What’s beneath our words is worth sharing

Everything we ever say – and everything we ever don’t – we’ve felt and thought first. Sometimes the gap between is a good thing: time to decide what to share, what to keep for ourselves alone. The problem is how fast the gap widens. Particularly when it’s the gap between the perfect thing in our head and the messy first draft that is the only road from head to world. 

That gap is why so many books aren’t finished, or even truly started (and, let’s face it, why so many conversations aren’t opened, jobs left unapplied for, changes left unmade). 

Here is an answer. 

You’re probably not going to like it.

1. Show Up Imperfect. 

Say The Thing, a phrase at the heart of the Writers’ Gym, was first said to me by Ariel Fisher when I was writing for Fangoria. I use it every day to identify what I want to say and why I want to say it. It’s tempting as a beginner writer to believe it’s only the best ideas, the most useful, the truest, that make it out there. That’s a great reason to channel our creative energy into looking for others’ permission, or overwriting to sound like a writer, or waiting for absolute certainty in our feelings before daring to put our words out there. Perfection and certainty aren’t prerequisites for communication. Courage and curiosity are.

Your words don’t need to be perfect. They need to be understood. Which means they need to be good enough, clear enough. Enough is, often, enough.

Is it strange to hear an author, a writing coach, encouraging you not to get hung up on the words? Writing is a means to the end. The end is not perfect words. It’s connecting with each other. 

2. Connection beats perfection. (For a start, it exists.)

My LAMDA students Ram and Amerie Said The Thing to me this week after their recent LAMDA Exams. Their results matter to them not simply because of the destination (distinctions) but because of the journey they haven’t forgotten now they’re on to the next one: their LAMDA coaching isn’t just about looking at the next achievement, it’s appreciating how impossible the one they’ve just achieved once seemed and honouring what they had to do and think in order to change it from impossible to hard and worth it! Ram, for example, used to think he couldn’t do his speechwriting on his own. That all the speechwriting had to be in our sessions, never between. Then we picked a subject he truly loved and I knew nothing about – football – and he told his truth in his own words. This week, I received a gift from Ram. One he had voluntarily written himself:

This was such a personal gift, such a thoughtful thank-you, that it will serve me as a reminder for the rest of my career that Saying The Thing is worth the fear of vulnerability in meaning it.

Ram’s sister Amerie painted a picture for me to say thank you. It was inspired by Teddy, my cat, my teaching assistant until his death in 2019 and one of Amerie’s first memories of LAMDA coaching. She remembers him because he made her feel calm and happy as he sat between us on the sofa in my old living room, a decade ago, while she wrote, spoke, rehearsed and performed. It wasn’t what Teddy said that made him important to Amerie…

Teddy’s presence in Amerie’s painting is itself a reminder that, in the end, it’s not what we say but how we make others feel that they remember:

It’s not our words that make the connection. It’s our willingness to reach out with them. If you’ve got something to say, a story you’re ready to explore, the world is as ready as you are.

You probably know I start every week with The Writing Room. Anyone on my mailing list (that’s you) is welcome to join for the full two hours or just a few minutes and write together. You don’t have to call yourself a writer. There are no ‘have to’s at all. It’s time for you to do whatever you want and need. We unmute for an optional chat at 12.50pm. 

Other ways to build you writing and creative confidence this October:

The Writers’ Gym monthly calendar

Writing a Short Story Cycle | Saturday 26 October | Southwest London and online 

Riverscribes Creative Writing | Tuesdays 1, 15, 29 October | Riverside Studios 

Come and write with us this week…

Ready to stop waiting for the perfect moment? Grab a workout for your word-count (or a PT session here) this week:

The Writing Room | 11-1pm Monday 30 September 
FREE for everyone on my mailing list (if you’re reading this, that’s you!). Time and space to think and write with like-minded people. No expectations, no readings, just an open chat box and unmuting for ten minutes’ (totally optional) chat together at the end. Click here.

Riverscribes: Creative Writing Workshop | 7-8.30pm Tuesday 1 October 
A lively and supportive creative writing forum where you are invited to share, discuss and develop your work at Riverside Studios. Whether you come for one session or every session, you’re guaranteed to build your knowledge, deepen your confidence and increase your enjoyment in your creative writing. Click here. 

Friday Writing Workout | 12-1pm Friday 4 October 
The perfect creative start to the weekend. Boost your confidence and your word-count with a lunch-hour writing workout. Whether you’re an experienced writer or just beginning, enjoy exercises, discussion, tips and techniques to build your strength, knowledge and creativity. Free for Writers’ Gym members: type your discount code where indicated. Click here.

Coming up on Saturday 26 October:

Writing a Short Story Cycle | 2.30pm-5.30pm at Olympic Studios
Celebrate the first birthday of Twisted Branches by Rachel Knightley with an afternoon workshop exploring the techniques for creating plots and themes that link a short story collection to make the world you create so much more than the sum of its parts. Click here.

Members and VIP Members: please use your exclusive codes on any online workshops to activate your discount. Forgotten/lost your code? No problem: just email info@rachelknightley.com or ask Rachel in the Voxer app.

Download a Writers’ Gym membership brochure at writersgym.com or email thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com

Listen to Winter Spring: An Audio Drama by Rachel Knightley and Alternative Stories on Apple, Spotify or any of your favourite platforms.

Time to stop starving your creativity?

You probably know I start every week with The Writing Room. Anyone on my mailing list (that’s you), any friend, anyone in my community is welcome to join for the full two hours or just a few minutes and write together. You don’t have to call yourself a writer. There are no ‘have to’s at all. It’s time for you to do whatever you want and need to do. We unmute for a chat at the end – and today the subject of notebooks came up. Specifically, what does and doesn’t go into them.

I’m not the only person in the Writing Room who’s caught themselves starving their notebook. Today I heard all the usual reasons I’ve so often given myself – like how beautiful the notebook is, how we don’t want to diminish it, how we want what we finally write to be worthy. So today I compared that beautiful notebook to a friendship, a relationship, a pet, a sibling: to anyone and everyone you love. 

“I didn’t want to bother you…” or “I know how busy you are”… might have good intentions. But however good the intentions, the truth is that it’s starving – instead of feeding – the relationship.

The offer I made today is this:

See your notebook as a Tamagotchi. One of those digital dog or cat programmes you keep alive by remembering to feed, and stroke, and do all the things it needs. It’s not about doing it perfectly. It’s about showing up.

What happens if we don’t show up for our Tamagotchi? The same things happens with the non-biological creature as would happen with the biological one. RIP.

Tamagotchi’s aren’t really alive. Neither, necessarily, are notebooks. We can’t kill something in the literal sense by not showing up for them. But there are deeper truths than the literal, and creative confidence is all about working out the courage and specificity of what you want to create in order to begin creating it. Which, on the page and in the world, starts with a first draft. Not a perfect thing in your head, but an imperfect thing in the world.

Our notebooks, like our relationships, are healthier for being fed and stroked than being held back from – however good we think our intentions are in holding back. The braver thing, the thing the world outside our head gets more out of, is us daring to show up.

A Creative I-Dare-You: What if my notebook or computer is my Tamagotchi? 
It’s not about how much or how perfectly you show up for it. It’s just about showing up.

Want to build creative confidence along with your word-count? Join me for Fiction, Memoir and Truth this Saturday 28 September on Zoom.

This Week at the Writers’ Gym

Looking for more writing time this week? Join us this Saturday for our next online retreat at the Writers’ Gym: 

Fiction, Memoir and Truth | 3-6.30pm Saturday 28 September 
Whether we’re exploring the stories that made us who we are or imagining the versions of ourselves resulting from paths untaken, fiction and memoir are equally magical to write. Join us for an online afternoon retreat at the Writers’ Gym and see where your stories go next. 30% off for Writers’ Gym members. Click here

Your upcoming week at the Writers’ Gym:

The Writing Room | 11-1pm Monday 23 September 
FREE for everyone on my mailing list (if you’re reading this, then that’s you!). Time and space to think and write with like-minded people. No expectations, no readings, just an open chat box and unmuting for ten minutes’ chat at the end. Click here

Sponsored Write Interview | 12pm Wednesday 25 September 
This year’s page is now open for Green Ink Sponsored Write for Macmillan Cancer Support. This week, hear Writers’ Gym staff member and Sponsored Writer, Isabella Barbieri, in conversation with Writers’ Gym member and first-time Sponsored Writer Kim Fleet on Instagram Live: @jointhewritersgym 

Coffee & Creativity | 1-2:30pm Wednesday 25 September 
Quality writing time and quality company! Grab a coffee and have a mid-week chat, a write and then another chat with your fellow creatives. Free for Writers’ Gym members: type your discount code where indicated. Click here

Cocktails & Creativity | 7-8.30pm Thursday 26 September
Grab a drink – a pen, a keyboard or blank page and join us at the virtual pub! Hosted by Writers’ Gym staff member, Isabella Barbieri. We chat for fifteen minutes, work on our own projects and then chat again, whether that be about writing, art or life. Free for Writers’ Gym members: type your discount code where indicated. Click here 

InkCouragement: Friday Writing Workout | 12-1pm Friday 27 September 
Boost your confidence and your word-count with a lunch-hour writing workout. Whatever your creative and technical writing life needs, you’ll come away from this writing workout with practical steps to turn your dreams into goals and goals into realisable habits. Free for Writers’ Gym members: type your discount code where indicated.Click here

Fiction, Memoir and Truth | 3-6.30pm Saturday 28 September 
Whether we’re exploring the stories that made us who we are or imagining the versions of ourselves resulting from paths untaken, fiction and memoir are equally magical to write. Join us for an online afternoon retreat at the Writers’ Gym and see where your stories go next. 30% off for Writers’ Gym members. Click here

Members and VIP Members: please use your exclusive codes on any online workshops to activate your discount. Forgotten/lost your code? No problem: just email info@rachelknightley.com or ask Rachel in the Voxer app.

Download a Writers’ Gym membership brochure at writersgym.com or email thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com

Listen to Winter Spring: An Audio Drama by Rachel Knightley and Alternative Stories on Apple, Spotify or any of your favourite platforms.

Listen here as I chat with Writers’ Gym co-host, Emily Inkpen about my new audio drama: Winter Spring.

For someone running late with her autumn newsletter, there’s a pleasant irony to how the seasons have been shouting at me in art and life this week. A few Writers’ Gym members have heard how Hell Bunny’s advertising campaign really spoke to me: Summer’een, a time I certainly experience when I’m ready for the run-up to my default wardrobe’s season – Halloween – but the weather just won’t be told. Hell Bunny are using it to advertise (fabulous) summer dresses with spiders and bats on, but for me recognising Summer’een isn’t about buying anything. Instead it’s about ‘matching to the seasons’, a brilliant speech topic created by my LAMDA student Monica, recent recipient of Bronze Medal with distinction in Public Speaking (well done again, Monica!). My friend Natalie Leon’s new book, The Japanese Art of Living Seasonally, came out shortly before Monica’s speeches. Simultaneously, my first audio drama with Alternative Stories, Winter Spring launched last Friday (on the second spookiest day I could have hoped for, short of Halloween itself: Friday 13th September). 

Winter Spring takes its name from two fictionalised family names. In the attached interview which I’m sharing with permission from the Alternative Stories podcast, I talk about the questions its characters and plot lines evolved from, and how the best and worst aspects of my life experience fed into those questions. 

I do hope you enjoy listening to the interview, and if (as I hope above all) it gets you asking your own questions and ready to write your own “what ifs” in response, do come and join me on Saturday 28 September for the Writers’ Gym’s next Saturday retreat, Fiction, Memoir and Truth.

The Writers’ Gym Podcast with me, Emily Inkpen and Chris Gregory returns in October (photo below from our recent recording sessions, with Emily teaching me the difference between a Millennial heart and a Gen Z heart – I’m sticking to the Vulcan salute) but in the meantime there are many ways to get involved:

Listen to Winter Spring…
on Spotify (below), Apple Podcasts (above), or any podcast platform:https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/2gBu6Bqmc7CiC8zwXTYIPZ

Come to the Writing Room for free, every Monday…
Drop in any time from 11am to 1pm, or stay for the whole two hours. We unmute at 12.50pm for a chat about art and/or life. Weekly links on Substack every Monday.

Join the Writers’ Gym, as a member or guest. Anybody can join any session, and our weekly programme is free to members. Monthly calendar at www.writersgym.com or book any event here.

Book a one-to-one creative confidence session. Whether you want to start that story, finish that book, build your freelance or personal life and career, this is the space to get to know what you want and how to make it happen. Email info@rachelknightley.com or read more here.

This Week at the Writers’ Gym:

The Writing Room | 11-1pm Monday 16 September 
FREE for everyone on my mailing list (if you’re reading this, then that’s you!). Time and space to think and write with like-minded people. No expectations, no readings, just an open chat box and unmuting for ten minutes’ chat at the end. Click here

Sponsored Write Interview | 3.35pm Tuesday 17 September 
This year’s page is now open for Green Ink Sponsored Write for Macmillan Cancer Support. Rachel will be in conversation with Writers’ Gym member and fellow Sponsored Writer, Vanessa Thompsett on Instagram Live: @drrachelknightley

Coffee & Creativity | 1-2:30pm Wednesday 18 September 
Quality writing time and quality company! Grab a coffee and have a mid-week chat, a write and then another chat with your fellow creatives. Free for Writers’ Gym members: type your discount code where indicated. Click here

Writing Room EXTRA | 11-1pm Friday 20 September 
Members only: please check your Voxer messages for this link.

Join us for our Autumn Retreats. Now live and ready to book: 

Fiction, Memoir and Truth | 3-6.30pm Saturday 28 September 
Whether we’re exploring the stories that made us who we are or imagining the versions of ourselves resulting from paths untaken, fiction and memoir are equally magical to write. Join us for an afternoon retreat at the Writers’ Gym and see where your stories go next. 30% off for Writers’ Gym members. Click here

Writing a Short Story Cycle | 2.30-7.30pm Saturday 26 October 
Celebrate the birthday of Twisted Branches by creating your own short story cycle. Develop your stories, characters and creative confidence with inspiring exercises, supportive discussion, tips and techniques. 30% off for Writers’ Gym members. Click here

Members and VIP Members: please use your exclusive codes on any online workshops to activate your discount. Forgotten/lost your code? No problem: just email info@rachelknightley.com or ask Rachel in the Voxer app.

Download a Writers’ Gym membership brochure at writersgym.com or email thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com

Listen to Winter Spring: An Audio Drama by Rachel Knightley and Alternative Stories on Apple, Spotify or any of your favourite platforms.

By Dr Rachel Knightley for Jewish Renaissance Magazine.

WINTER SPRING, AN AUDIO DRAMA ABOUT JUDAISM, IDENTITY AND STORYTELLING, LAUNCHES THIS FRIDAY. CREATOR DR RACHEL KNIGHTLEY REVEALS THE WHERES, WHATS AND WHY-NOWS BEHIND THE PROJECT.

In approximately 1997, when I would have been 15 or 16, I put up my hand at a prominent author’s Q&A and asked why being Jewish wasn’t ever just one aspect of characters’ lives. It was always the most important or visible thing about them. It was never a thing, but always the thing. That author said there was no point in them being Jewish in the story unless that was the most important thing about them. I didn’t disagree aloud, however strongly I felt this was, at best, the opposite of my own experience – of what Judaism being a fundamental part of my identity felt like. I listened to his answer, saw it as his answer, and knew it didn’t have to be mine. But I continue to disagree and feel that Judaism, if never seen as one of many things about who a character is in themselves, is a significant missed opportunity. How important something is, how intrinsic it is to who you are, doesn’t always equate with how visible it is.

Thinking the opposite, or not thinking about it at all, is why we have that permanent background exhaustion that goes a little deeper every time the BBC posts a picture of ultra-Orthodox male Jews praying in an instantly visible way whenever they talk about anything Jewish – whether that picture is representative of the story or not. The tiredness of having to say (or live with not saying) every day that just as a government doesn’t equal a country, just as a country doesn’t equal a diaspora, just as a diaspora doesn’t equal everyone agreeing about everything any more than a family equals identical units who agree about everything… that I am just as Jewish as any first-in-the-Shutterstock-images choice the news makes. I am just as real a picture of what my identity means.

I don’t directly explore this in Winter Spring, my new audio drama coming out on the Alternative Stories platform on 13 September. Instead, I do something I think there’s far more of a call for, if we really do want society to be about living together rather than apart.

Alice Winter, her brother Ash, and cousin Harris Spring are the third generation of a family property company founded by their German immigrant grandfather, who taught them that the one thing the world would always need are good landlords. Three generations later, in order to survive, Ash has turned the business into an estate agency: the thing their grandfather hated most. A new tenant, known only as Poppy, moves into the top floor of what she discovers used to be their family home. Alice lives in the other flat with Kit, the imaginary friend she’s had since childhood. As stories of future and past fight to be ‘true’, the story asks: Are we more than the stories we tell ourselves?

None of this is autobiographical in its specifics, but it’s ethically autobiographical. It’s what I inherited, not just from my parents and grandparents, but from the songs, the stories and the ceremonies around them that have shaped our life cycles for 2,000 years.

Winter Spring is about what it means for a story to be true. Like audio drama itself, the stories we carry, our truest stories, are without pictures. It’s about remembering that and being ready to listen – to others’ stories and to our own. Because they can all be true.

By Dr Rachel Knightley

An extended version of this article appears on drrachelknightley.substack.com.

Written by Dr. Rachel Knightley, Author, and Confidence Coach for Brainz Magazine.

Take one blank page. Any will do. Lined or unlined, screen or notebook: the important thing is to stare and wait – pen raised, or fingers hovering over the keys – as if the words are supposed to be coming from it to you, instead of from you to it.

Consider every writer you have ever admired

Not just all the ones you like reading and tell yourself (in great detail) you will never be as good as, but all the ones you feel you ‘should’ like. The ones who intimidate you. The people whose words or faces you associate with your own perceived unworthiness. The ones who bore you, or irritate you. Then you can tell yourself what you like isn’t what other people like anyway. Gloss lightly over the ones who encourage you – either personally or through what you’ve read by them or about them – in order to focus on the ones whose presence, somewhere in the world (present or past), is a shortcut to telling yourself that of course your page is blank; you were crazy to think you deserved to be anything alongside them. Least of all a fellow-writer.

Focus on how good you want the writing to be, instead of what you want to write

Do not under any circumstances give yourself the fun of a tasty ‘what if…?’ to get you building a character, creating a situation, imagining a conversation, planning a structure. Instead, focus on an ‘it must’. It must be good. It must be impressive. It must be representative of everything I am and everything I can be. I must get every idea I have into this one book because I’ll obviously never write another. This is a reassuringly clear, unarguably binary approach where there is only absolute success or absolute failure. Whereas, if you let yourself play with a ‘what if’, such as ‘what if a character does this…?’ or ‘what if an event is like that…?’, you don’t have that reassuring clarity of knowing you’re a failure. Instead, you might find your mind drifting; you might find yourself writing something different to anything you planned or anything you ever expected – and that means relinquishing all that reassuring control. To avoid that scary loss of control, just focus on the quality you want the unwritten or barely written thing to achieve. The audience response you believe it vital to get for your unwritten or barely written thing – then, because you can’t guarantee getting it from something unfinished, you can reassure yourself it wasn’t worth writing in the first place and never would. After that, when (if) you’re (ever) ready, you can return to step one: staring at the blank page. 

Convince yourself you have to do this alone

Remind yourself that the countless Writing Rooms, writing events, writing workshops, writing organisations, writing magazines, writing coaches, writing groups, writing degrees and other ways to make your writing a visible part of your life (and build a community that shares your interest in it) are all, essentially, cheating. Tell yourself that the isolated, struggling artist is the only model for a true writer. Tell yourself about ‘gatekeepers’ and ‘pyramid schemes’ so you can convince yourself that accepting help from any agent, editor, coach, tutor or writing group or anyone outside of your own head is not only unnecessary but immoral. In your own time, return to step one.

Don’t read within your genre, in case the styles influence you

After all, what if you read something you liked the sound of and saw that another writer had your exact idea and already written it before you? Okay, it couldn’t literally be your exact idea and exact voice, because only you could ever have that exact combination, but what if it’s close? What if an idea like yours already existed in the world? What if your idea isn’t one hundred per cent unique in every way? That would obviously mean you had nothing new to contribute to literature; that you couldn’t use your idea. Return, despairing and more convinced of the need for what you write to be good, to step one: staring at the blank page.

Don’t read outside your genre, in case you get distracted

Or if not distracted, change your mind. Or if not change your mind, realize there are other ideas in you so you feel overwhelmed with how many books could actually be in your future when none exist in your present. Instead of another tasty ‘what if’, such as ‘what if I write all them one day, one at a time,’ avoid looking too closely at other ideas for fear of overwhelm. Focus instead on how good you want the one your current unwritten idea to be.

Do not, under any circumstances, enroll for the ‘Free Writing Room’ run every week by The Writers’ Gym

Even though it’s a drop-in session, so you can just pop in during your lunch-hour (or stay for the whole thing). That’s far too dangerous. Because imagine if you realized you could actually grab a few minutes? And that those few minutes add up to more and more words? Do not attend Coffee and Creativity in the middle of the week either. Then you’d inevitably make friends and get lots more writing done. It shouldn’t be that easy. Should it?

Above all, sit and wait for inspiration. Remind yourself that writing should never involve hard work like cleaning the house or learning the violin do. Writing, surely, is about a perfect idea landing perfectly in your head at the perfect time you can write it down word for word. Pushing out one thought at a time, and accepting you’ll only really know what you have – or what you mean – when you’ve laid it all out on paper and are spending regular time editing and developing it? Surely not. Surely writing is about being inspired; not about working hard to move closer and closer to your meaning with every step, every word, one layer at a time. That would be crazy. Wouldn’t it?

Not tempted by Writer’s Block? Sign up for The Writers’ Gym’s weekly links: here!

Ink Couragement: Dr Rachel Knightley at the Writers’ Gym

Book an Introductory Power Hour with Dr Rachel here!

Visit the Writers’ Gym at writersgym.com Dr Rachel Knightley is a fiction and non-fiction author, qualified business and personal coach and the founder of The Writers’ Gym membership and podcast. She lectures in creative writing and is currently resident at Riverside Studios, London.

Follow me on Facebook, Instagram. and visit my website for more info!

Read more from Dr Rachel Knightley

This week at the Writers’ Gym

Before this week’s events diary, a quick look ahead to our Autumn Retreat days:

Fiction, Memoir and Truth Afternoon Retreat | 3pm-6.30pm Saturday 28 September 
A truthful story is about so much more than ‘what happened’: whether we’re exploring the stories that made us who we are or imagining the versions of ourselves resulting from paths untaken, fiction and memoir are equally magical to write. Join us for an afternoon retreat at the Writers’ Gym and see where your stories go next. 30% off for Writers’ Gym members. Click here

Writing a Short Story Cycle: Retreat Day at the Writers’ Gym | 2.30-7.30pm Saturday 26 October 
Celebrate the birthday of Twisted Branches by creating your own short story cycle. Develop your stories, characters and creative confidence with inspiring exercises, supportive discussion and tips and techniques with a published author, creative 

AND…

Winter Spring by Rachel Knightley 
On Friday 13 September, Alternative Stories are releasing my new audio drama, Winter Spring. From imaginary friends, religious atheists, estate agents to invisible prejudices, non-literal truths, ghost writers and writers’ ghosts, this is an imagined version of something very real: the power of stories to tell us who we are or help us find who we choose to be. Join me throughout the week on Instagram Live talking to different cast and crew members every day: @drrachelknightley 

This Week at the Writers’ Gym:

The Writing Room | 11-1pm Monday 9 September 
FREE for everyone on my mailing list (if you’re reading this, then that’s you!). Time and space to think and write with like-minded people. No expectations, no readings, just an open chat box and unmuting for ten minutes’ chat at the end. Click here

Coffee & Creativity | 1-2:30pm Wednesday 11 September 
Quality writing time and quality company! Grab a coffee and have a mid-week chat, a write and then another chat with your fellow creatives. Free for Writers’ Gym members: type your discount code where indicated. Click here

Friday Writing Workout | 12-1pm Friday 13 September 
The perfect creative start to the weekend. Boost your confidence and your word-count with Dr Rachel Knightley’s lunch-hour writing workout. Whether you’re an experienced writer or just beginning, enjoy exercises, discussion, tips and techniques to build your strength, knowledge and creativity. Free for Writers’ Gym members. Click here

Sponsored Write Interview | 1.30pm Friday 13 September 
This year’s page is now open for Green Ink Sponsored Write for Macmillan Cancer Support. Rachel will be in conversation with award-winning editor and writer, Dan Coxon on Instagram Live: @drrachelknightley

This week at the Writers’ Gym

Before this week’s calendar, a look ahead to our autumn programme:

Fiction, Memoir and Truth Afternoon Retreat | 3pm-6.30pm Saturday 28 September 
A truthful story is about so much more than ‘what happened’: whether we’re exploring the stories that made us who we are or imagining the versions of ourselves resulting from paths untaken, fiction and memoir are equally magical to write. Join Dr Rachel Knightley for an afternoon retreat at the Writers’ Gym and see where your stories go next. 30% off for Writers’ Gym members. Click here

Short-form Fiction Writing with Dr Rachel Knightley | 1-2.30pm Tuesday 10 September
Part of our six session course, Rachel will take you through the process of creating and submitting your short fiction. Artistically and professionally, this course is the place to build your knowledge, deepen your confidence and increase your enjoyment in your creative writing both as a medium and within a writing career.  Save and book the full six weeks: email us at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com, or to book week by week click here. 30% off for Writers’ Gym members. 

This Week at the Writers’ Gym:

The Writing Room | 11-1pm Monday 2 September 
FREE for everyone on my mailing list (if you’re reading this, then that’s you!). Time and space to think and write with like-minded people. No expectations, no readings, just an open chat box and unmuting for ten minutes’ chat at the end. Click here

Sponsored Write Interview | 12pm Wednesday 4 September 
This year’s page is now open for Green Ink Sponsored Write for Macmillan Cancer Support. Rachel will be in conversation with Writers’ Gym staff member and Sponsored Writer, Isabella Barbieri on Instagram Live: @drrachelknightley @jointhewritersgym

Coffee & Creativity | 1-2:30pm Wednesday 4 September 
Quality writing time and quality company! Grab a coffee and have a mid-week chat, a write and then another chat with your fellow creatives. Free for Writers’ Gym members: type your discount code where indicated. Click here

Writing Room EXTRA | 11-1pm Friday 6 September 
Members only: please check your Voxer messages for this link.

Members and VIP Members: please use your exclusive codes on any online workshops to activate your discount. Forgotten/lost your code? No problem: just email info@rachelknightley.com or ask Rachel in the Voxer app.

Download a Writers’ Gym membership brochure at writersgym.com or email thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com

Listen to The Writers’ Gym podcast with Rachel Knightley, Emily Inkpen and Chris Gregory on Apple, Spotify or any of your favourite platforms.