The Last Page
Hello and welcome! This is the 81st issue of Place! For the past four weeks, we’ve been sending you writing prompts roughly based on the most common questions that have come up over the past year and a half of both writing and editing this newsletter. We were originally planning to go back to our regular scheduled programming this week but have decided to send out one more reflection – one that we hope will let you tie that invisible string between all that you’ve written over the past month. As the end of the year draws closer, think of today’s newsletter as a final deep breath, to draw you closer to yourself, and to whatever places you’ve been brought to – or reminded of – over the last 12 months. From the tip of our hopeful pencil to yours, Place xx.
Take up all of the pages you’ve filled over the past four weeks. Read them over, slowly and openly. Note the parts of your writing that you like, that spark further curiosity in you, that feel authentic to your experiences. Note also the sentences or words that feel forced. Are you dancing around something? Is there a better way to word a concept you’re trying to explain?
Sometimes when we write, there are things we ‘want to get to’ but we never end up getting on the page. Instead, other thoughts fill up our lines, perhaps those that we feel are necessary to provide context, but that can end up detracting from the main sentiment we want to explore.
This week, after reading over your work, start by writing about something that you feel strongly towards. This could be a major take-away that has been revealed to you over the past weeks, or something that your previous writing was trying to get at, but perhaps never did. Write down the story that these prompts have made you reconsider. Write down whatever has been hanging in the back of your mind. Write down what place means to you, what its taught you about yourself, or the world.
There won’t be any writing tips this week. Not because there aren’t more (there are always more!), but because instead of building upwards and outwards from the last four weeks, this week, we want you to go inwards. Go back to the start, to the elementary, to the heart.
Sit in that place and write.
We’ve so thoroughly enjoyed this reflection journey with you. If there is anything that has come up that you think would be a good fit for us, please pitch it. We’d love to hear your story. Otherwise, we’ll see you next week. For another journey.
Place Recommends:
A monk building a cathedral from construction materials,
and some really beautiful pictures of wildlife.