#FreeWrite Fridays at the Writing Table with Coach Eileen Campbell-Reed
Is there a writer in your life? Perhaps you need the perfect gift for that writer! What better than the gift of writing itself? When you purchase a gift membership at the Writing Table, your beloved writer will get a full year of space and time to join supportive community of writers each week.
HINT: if you are the writer and you want this gift? Just share this link the next time someone says, what’s on your gift list?
Writing Table Annual Membership
What is #FreeWrite Friday?
An hour of writing in community every Friday morning (except major holidays). All types of writers show up. We breathe. We write for a pom (25 min). Short break (3 min). We write for another pom (25 min). Then share writing strategies with each other. The focus is on getting writing done. Staying in our seats. Building better writing habits. And overcoming resistance when writing is challenging, boring, overwhelming, etc. The camaraderie, accountability, shared strategies, and Eileen’s encouragement and coaching (based in 10+ yrs experience), is the glue that holds it together. Some people say it’s magic. A writing prompt is available each Friday (9a ET // 8a CT // 7a MT // 6a PT).
Sign up below to get a weekly reminder email for #FreeWrite Friday.
What is the Writing Table?
In the early pandemic days, students, pastors, professors, and authors were feeling a lot of stress on our writing (here is how one of our favorite writers has navigated it). So to help combat the isolation and overwhelm, and to give writers a sense of accountability and support, Eileen Campbell-Reed began hosting a space and time every week. We called it the Writing Table. (Thanks to Adam D.J. Brett for the name!) At the Writing Table, we build solid writing habits. We show up (everyone’s favorite strategy). And we benefit from a community of people who want to get our writing done!
As founder and host of the Writing Table, Eileen Campbell-Reed brings more than a decade of coaching experience, working with academic writers, and now writers in many other professions, mostly ministry-related. She is delighted each week not only to host the space but to offer gentle encouragement, coaching, and reminders about the basic skills for the writing habits that we are all building. She wrote and edited much of Pastoral Imagination while hosting the Writing Table during the Covid-19 pandemic.
We are so glad to welcome many other hosts during special seasons like Lent, No-Stress November and Summer Sessions. Everyone who hosts the Writing Table is experienced at facilitating and guiding conversation, keeping time, and welcoming you!
Signup Form
Please be sure to check the box for Writing Table on the form!
Need extra support for your writing project?
Eileen is currently available for new one-to-one coaching clients. She offers both coaching for planning your projects, and developmental coaching that offers you direct feedback on the writing itself.
Coaching sessions are a great way to get help and support for your specific work. You can focus on a book, a dissertation, a sermon series, or an academic article or chapter.
Each session is one-on-one and tailored just to you! Visit the 3MMM shop to learn more about individual coaching options, which include membership at the Writing Table.
Or explore the options for developmental coaching plus membership at the Writing Table!
Who is it for?
All kinds of people come to the Writing Table. Pastors who work on their sermons. Professors who are writing books. Graduate students are writing dissertations. Poets who are writing poetry. Authors who are writing articles and blogs. Dreamers who are writing down their dreams. Everyday people who want to put their ideas into the world come to the Writing Table. Anyone who wants to write for an hour can join us. We don’t talk about what we’re writing (unless you want to, then no one objects). We focus on strategies for building writing habits. Would like your writing to be something the more than an occasional effort? Do you like to complete a draft and have your writing published?
Then please join the writers and authors and students and preachers to strengthen and complete what you love to do.
That’s one of my mentors and professors used to say to me, “I don’t really love writing but I love having written.” Thanks, Carolyn Blevins, for that truthful word. The best way to have written, is to start writing on a daily basis, or maybe you need three days a week or maybe you need one day a week. Wherever you are in building your habit, the Writing Table can be for you.
What do we do when we gather at the Writing Table?
We write in brief sessions. Professor Robert Boice studied over a thousand academic writers across 30 years. In his research he learned that writing briefly and daily, holding back before writing and writing before ready, are strategies that help one to build a solid and lasting writing habit. Planning small steps and letting others do some of the work are also keys to a productive writing habit. The best writers are do not write excessively and without any breaks (oh there are exceptions, but don’t try to be one!). They are people who see writing as part of their everyday work and keep plugging away. And they learn to write without excruciating pain but instead with mild enjoyment. They learn to let go of unreasonable expectations and also critical voices and negative feelings.
So we write in small chunks (we like to use the pomodoro technique) or even for longer stretches, but then making sure to take breaks. We write humanely. And by doing the work simultaneously in community, we reinforce how showing up and taking time to breathe, setting intentions and sharing our strategies, make everyone’s habit stronger.
Here is the evidence it works. Just look at all these books so far (and more are being added all the time!)
We keep the same basic structure of timing in every writing table. Beginning and ending on time, taking a break in the middle, and sharing our strategies (and struggles), and of course, we give mutual encouragement to each other in each gathering.
How will it help me?
Since March 2020, scores of writers have joined me at the Writing Table. They have completed everything from dissertations and books to devotionals and short articles, blogs and magazine features, sermons and reports, poetry and study guides. The proof is in the success of everyone has made the commitment to show up for themselves and their writing on a regular basis. Sure you can write on your own. You’re probably already doing that. But what you’ll find is by writing in community, your commitment and your accomplishments will both grow
What are #FreeWrite Fridays?
For more than two years, Eileen hosted of the Writing Table for no charge. Completely free. Anyone could come to the Writing Table, receive encouragement and support from a writing coach, and share a seat at the table with others. What we learned since March of 2020 is that doing this kind of writing in a coworking space is something people need and want. It is something Eileen truly enjoys doing!
To continue to make it possible, we needed to offer the Writing Table as a service in exchange for very reasonable fee. But also we want people to be able to try it. With no charge. And sometimes people just want to write about once a week. To make all of that possible, the Writing Table on Fridays will remain free for the foreseeable future. Use the sign up form below to get the weekly Zoom link!
We call this offering #FreeWrite Fridays. One of the greatest strategies when you’re stuck in any writing project, is not to keep pressing on with the project. It is to stop and just simply do some freewriting. Put your fingers to the key or your hand to the pen on paper and just let whatever comes out come out. Many widely published authors use this strategy to get unstuck.
If what you need the Writing Table to do is to help you get unstuck, then by all means join us on Fridays and give it a try. You can write anything you like from free writing to poetry to the most important magnum opus. There’s no judgment at the Writing Table. Only support and cheering you on. You may find that you like it so much do you want to come other days of the week. And that will be possible this year by joining monthly or annually.
When exactly does the Writing Table meet?
Times: 9:00am ET // 8:00am CT // 7:00am MT // 6:00am PT
Days: Most Weekdays (except major holidays)
Zoom: You will receive a link in your email once you join #FreeWrite Fridays and/or pay for a monthly or annual membership.
Everyone who joins the Zoom call writes together as a collective. Cameras and audio turned off.
In order to get the Writing Table emails each week for #FreeWrite Fridays, you will need to stay subscribed to 3MMM’s Writing Table. Of course you’re always welcome to change your preferences at any time!
More questions? Want to know more about individual coaching? Please visit this page and tell me what you need. I have a few more one-to-one coaching spots open currently. You could be in one of them!
Signup Form
Please be sure to check the box for Writing Table on the form!