Swanwick 2017 - Tuesday: Mindful Procrastination

Mindfulness for Writers

Tuesday is what Swanwick refers to as Procrastination Free Day - so they don't normally run courses. Last time I went, they ran a panel on writing crime fiction in the morning, with an intense group writing session you can sign up to. The afternoons are reserved for planning and rehearsing entries for the Page to Stage contests.

This time around, they didn't run the specialist courses, but they ran short courses in the morning sessions, and I opted to visit one titled Mindfulness for Writers, hosted by Zana Lamont. This discussed living in the moment, along with the types of thoughts, concepts of self-kindness and common humanity, and some sessions of meditation. There was also a free-form writing challenge involving dreams. Although we didn't share them in the session, me and a couple of other attendees read out what we wrote to each other - which was described as 'wholesome writing'.

The rest of the day was fairly quiet - just focused on writing, and maybe a film to get some inspiration. The evening entertainment this time was the busker's night. Some good performances mixed with a few (off-side) jokes. And before anybody asks: no, I didn't sing at that one. Sorry.