There’s something irresistible about the promise of bottomless mimosas on New Year’s Day. It sounds so — festive — even if I know that in real life, day drinking has a way of turning me into a depressed and maudlin sloth.
I did not want to start the new year as a depressed and maudlin sloth. However, I did want to start the new year writing. So at 9 am on Jan. 1, I found myself at Writers Blok for its Kickstart Your Year in Writing event: three hours of semi-structured writing time intercut with socializing and goal setting with other writers — fueled by coffee, tea, fruit, nuts, and mimosas.
The mimosas came in two varieties: real and virgin.
The goal of Writers Blok is simple. You come, you buckle down and write for a set time, then you chat a little about your writing with other writers. The idea is that a little structure and a little company can work wonders for your writing habit — like getting you to actually develop said habit.
I went to my first Writers Blok event a couple years ago, when these writing sessions were held just one night a week in a garishly-lit upstairs room of a church in Santa Monica. Since then, Writers Blok has gotten its own cute space in the Culver City Arts District. There’s a break room with drinks and snacks — including pour over coffee with beans roasted by the local coffee shop Bar Nine — and a sunny writing room with a mix of small and communal tables.
Sessions happen every day. In fact, most days, writers could conceivably spend up to nine hours at Writers Blok, doing one session after another with breaks for meals.
But really, a few hours is probably enough for most people, most days. The three-hour new year morning event was broken up into two sessions. First, I checked in and got a piece of chalk to write down my writing goal on a board — to journal three pages — then sat down for an hour to try and achieve it. At the end of the hour we all gathered around the board to talk about how we did. I managed to write just two pages, partly because journaling tends to make me ruminate, and partly because of the freezing temperature of the space — It’s been unusually cold in L.A. lately — which prompted me to keep getting hot cups of tea to keep warm.
Then came the extended session — ninety minutes of writing, after which we broke into small groups and ate dark chocolate while answering prompt questions about our writing, which on this day had to do mostly with what we planned to write in 2019.
In our small group of five, I was especially touched by what one woman with a gentle smile shared. She’d recently finished an essay about a medical mishap that had taken away the use of one of her hands. Her goal for 2019 was to turn that into a longer work.
Five cups of chamomile tea, three bananas, two journal pages, and a thousand words in a Google doc later, I left Writers Blok with a goal to keep writing a thousand words a day in 2019, even if I don’t yet know what will become of that freeflow of words.
Interested in trying out Writers Blok for your own writing goals? Until Jan 15, you can sign up for a free 7-day trial. Otherwise, you can opt for the $80-$95 a month membership or pay $10-$30 for single drop-in sessions. Writers Blok also hosts occasional events and workshops, free or discounted for members.
Writers Blok. 2677 S. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles.