The Challenge of Writing Home
Can telling your story improve The Rest of Your Life? Find out by taking part in this 12-week challenge to explore what 'home' means to you, gain new insights, and write a new life story.
Welcome to the Writing Home Challenge!
We humans love stories—stories of resilience, survival, and transformation, stories that give us perspective on our lives. When it comes to real-life stories, we love the ones that make us feel less alone.
Since I was nine, I have spent my life writing stories. For twenty-five years, I have earned a living teaching others how to write them. This past year, I have been posting chunks of memoir on Substack, and the response has been tremendous. With the most successful posts, I feel I’ve reached a common core of experience that connects me to a whole community, which is an incredible feeling. So, I want to thank every one of you who has liked a post or left a comment and let me know that my words have touched you.
The Benefits of Memoir
Writing your life is beneficial in many ways. Making it public can help others. Keeping it private will still, however, help you. So, even if you don’t think of yourself as a writer, there is value in exploring the stories of your life.
You don’t have to believe, along with Socrates, that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. But the unexamined life will tend to get you stuck in repeating loops. Some memories snag us again and again, like a nailhead protruding from a door frame. We keep catching our clothes, scratching our bare skin. We tell ourselves, “I must do something about that,” but we don’t make time for it, and so it keeps on happening. Memories are not nailheads, though. So maybe, in the case of memories, we don’t think we can do anything about it.
As someone who transformed their life from one massive shitshow to something pretty damn good, I’m here to tell you that we can.
Whether you want to write a memoir, privately note down some of the things you have lived and learned, or gain insights into yourself and move on from memories that snag you, this 12-week writing challenge is for you. The prompts will give you the gentle jolts to get you moving. The community will support you. And over the twelve weeks, you will find out what those stories of yours really mean.
Because they are meaningful. Life is not random and meaningless. It constantly throws us little mirrors in which to see ourselves. Have you noticed patterns? Similar experiences repeating? That is meaningful information, and once we understand what it means, we can do something about it.
Exploring your life through the medium of story, acknowledging motifs contained within a narrative arc, will bring you insights and healing. Revisiting the past in creative mode makes a difference, allowing you to connect safely with past versions of yourself. That six-year-old who didn’t understand why their father moved out. That twelve-year-old who cried themselves to sleep, and nobody came. That younger you who faced a darkness it’s barely possible to speak about.
This is your chance to reach those parts of you that got frozen in the unhappiness of the past. You get to be the older, wiser you who can reach a hand into the darkness and pull them out of it. This is what I’ve been doing for nearly two decades in my own life, and I’m here now to encourage you to do the same.
Why? Because writing out the stories of my past has been profoundly transformative. I’ve found time and again that writing through the difficult stuff, allowing its structure and motifs to emerge, has brought me insights and healing. Reframing them so that the truth isn’t buried, but the light is discovered and turned up.
The Shape of the Challenge
Today, and for the next twelve weeks, you’ll get an extra post on Tuesdays, if you’re subscribed to How to Evolve. If you only want the Friday essays, you can opt out by going to your account settings: toggle off “Writing Challenges”.
I have some powerful writing exercises to share, but I’m keeping the structure fairly loose because I want to be responsive to your needs and let the shape of this Challenge develop organically as we go deeper. To some extent, I’ll be taking my lead from you, both from your comments and from polls. Let’s start with one! The more input I get from you, the more I can shape the Writing Home Challenge to your needs.
I want this whole process to feel exciting, exploratory, positive (despite the dark stuff you might explore) and nourishing. For that reason, I never want you to feel overwhelmed. This isn’t a “course”. You don’t have to feel like you’re getting behind or you “haven’t done your homework”. Just read the Tuesday email when you have a quiet moment, and then take a pen and notebook (or open your favourite word processing app if that’s what you prefer) and follow along with the writing exercise to see where it takes you. You can give it five minutes or thirty. You can do parts of it on different days. Then later, if you have a thought that came out of the writing exercise, but only popped up when you were in the shower or doing the washing up (very creative times/places in my experience) jot that down too. If you have associated dreams, record them (on paper, screen or voicenote). See what your subconscious has to say about it, as the days unfold.
Today’s starter is free, but as we go deeper, the prompts and comment sections will be reserved for paid members for privacy. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber and want to try a month, you can do so for less than the price of two cups of coffee.
Okay, deep breath, let’s jump in!
First things First: What is “home” anyway?
I’ve been watching the responses to people losing their homes in the LA fires. I cannot think of anything more devastating. As my offspring will tell you, if I’m going on holiday and leaving them in charge for a while, they will say, “I’ll try not to set the house on fire” because they know it is my worst nightmare. Bastards. Trust me to raise some darkly funny ones.
Home is hugely important to me because, for the longest time, I didn’t feel like I had one. Sure, I used the word “home” to describe the place I had a key to, the place I rested my head at night. “I’m off home,” I’d say. But between the ages of eight and thirty-four, “home” didn’t necessarily mean safety and comfort. So this lovely house where I’ve finally been able to put down some roots, and which feels truly my own, is a very precious home indeed.
In this challenge, we’ll be exploring “home” in all its many guises. Where you go with it will be up to you (and your subconscious, which I will encourage you to allow to take the steering wheel fairly often!). But let’s start by exploring the whole subject at the top level. We’re going to do some freewriting.
If you’re not familiar with freewriting, the fundamentals (both execution and the reasons behind it) are here: The Creative Process in a Nutshell. Read that post, then return!
What you need for the exercise
A timer
Be aware that timers on your phone can be distracting (thanks, phone!), so if you have any other kind of timer available, use that. I have a smartwatch which does the job.
Free-flowing pen/large paper pad (computer for touch-typists)
Speed is of the essence, so choose the medium that allows you to keep up with your thoughts, or as close as possible. That’s handwriting, if you can’t touch type. Two-finger typing, or typing on your phone, just isn’t fast enough. You’re trying to get ahead of your ability to think of the next word. You need to be going so fast that you just have to take whatever your subconscious gives you. You want as direct a connection between your thoughts and the page as you can get and nothing in the way of your flow. Set yourself up for maximum speed.
This means, if you’re writing by hand, that a free-flowing pen is essential. Ballpoint biros don’t make the cut. Pencils, too, cause problems (leads break or they need sharpening suddenly ). You don’t want interruptions or distractions. My pen of choice is the Uni-ball Eye Fine UB-157 (0.7mm tip).
Small notebooks mean you spend too much time turning the page, so ideally, have an A4/Legal Letter-sized pad at your disposal. If you don’t have the right stuff with you, get as close to it as possible for now: the flowiest implement, the largest writing piece of paper. Put the rest on your shopping list!
A quiet, private space
Sure, you could do this in a crowded cafe, but not if anyone can see what you’re writing (which will make you self-conscious) and not if the noise is a distraction. Conversations nearby, or talk radio, will get in the way. Make sure you have noise-cancelling headphones, focus music (I use brain.fm) or silence.
The rules
No stopping, no crossing out, no delete key, no going back. Just flow forward rapidly. Grammar and spelling don’t matter. You are writing what you think, not thinking what to write. The aim is to empty the contents of your mind onto the page as rapidly as you can.
The process is one of listening for the next word your mind gives you. You can let go and let it do the “work”. It can take a little while to relax into this, but once you do, you are just allowing the words to come through. You are the secretary. The amanuensis. Nothing more.
If it’s garbage, no worries, you’re doing it perfectly. If you feel yourself ‘getting stuck,’ don’t stop writing, just write what you’re thinking e.g.
oh no, I’m getting stuck, I can’t think what to write next, the words just aren’t coming, oh yes, that’s right, I’m not supposed to be thinking what to write, I’m supposed to be letting it come, writing about home, writing about home…
and repeat the prompt as necessary. Write out the prompt a few times until you get “unstuck”. Yes, I am giving you a prompt, in a minute. You have been very patient, but we are nearly there.
Get ready
Get ready. Get ready to write REALLY fast and not stop until the timer goes off. Set the time for 5 minutes, or 10 if you are experienced at freewriting. When you are ready to write, start the time and press play for the prompt. Write down what I say and then KEEP ON WRITING until the timer goes off. When it does, you can finish whatever sentence you were writing. Don’t say No to the Flow.
Okay, here we go!
The prompt:
Afterwards
Okay, how was that? Read through what you wrote, and underline or highlight anything that interests you. Any phrase at all that catches your eye.
Did you write anything that surprised you?
Did a memory come up that you’d forgotten?
Did it get emotional?
Were there both bright spots and dark spots?
Did you go completely off-topic?
In the comments, please share your experience of doing this exercise, especially if something unexpected came up. Also, please let me know how easy or difficult it was to let go and allow the flow of words to just come through you.
If you found it difficult, practice is key. The more you do this, the more natural it begins to feel.
That might be enough for you for now, you decide. But if you want to take it further, choose one element, one phrase or image from your first piece of freewriting, and use that as a prompt. Set your time again (you can add 5 minutes to time if you like) and do another bout of freewriting. See where it goes. Is something interesting emerging?
Development
Freewriting is just the clay, not the pot. But maybe now you have some clay to work with. Is there something here that is calling to you? Is there something you’d like to develop further? When you have time, write on, more thoughtfully, but still with ease and looseness (no timer) and see what arises. This might be in the form of prose or poetry, whatever you are comfortable with; whatever it feels like it needs to be.
I’ll be back in your inbox next Tuesday with another Writing Home prompt, and we’ll go a little deeper.
And remember, your like costs you nothing, but to me, it is priceless. It might be the ‘like’ that puts this post in front of someone who really needs it. So go ahead and light up that heart :-).
Until next time!
I love the challenge and so glad I got on to Day 1 of it (so often I don’t read my emails from Substack, just too many). I wrote with pen on paper for 5 min and boy, my hand is hurting, not used to the speed.
The topic of home gave me so much to think about. I wrote about the duality of home as the childhood place of safety and (seeming) permanence. Where you are taken care of. But then the adult home as a now single person, the first place that is in my own image and not my spouse’s. But also its impermanence and the effort involved in keeping a roof over the family’s heads.
Hi Ros!
I noticed that you are halfway through this Challenge now and had the impulse to climb aboard, so I'm aiming to do 1 prompt a day between now and next week!
For some reason I'm quite resistant to freewriting as a practice, I think because it brings to my awareness just how fragmented my inner life is. But for the last few weeks I've been managing to publish weekly posts that are developing a voice that feels more like "me", so with that as a container I feel more ready to embrace the unconscious messiness too.
I was a bit surprised to find that the first thing I wrote was that home means "a place where I don't know what to expect". I realised that home for me is wrapped up in relations to other people, often unpredictable ones, but that I have a fantasy about having a home where I have more control, but have mostly tried to make that home inside myself rather than as an external reality. Now I'm at a point in life (at 45!) where I might be able to afford a mortgage and have my own home within the next year or two, which feels significant.
It brought up lots of early visual memories, of my first 3 homes (up to age 4), including one that was a temporary shelter for women that my mum and I moved to when I was 4 and my dad was mentally ill and behaving dangerously. It seemed I was entering a new stage of awareness around that time - I can remember new things I noticed (like inspecting the palms of my hands in great detail) and new concepts like being told what a "skeleton key" was, which made a great impression on me for some reason. Interesting to notice the kinds of things that pop up now, and wonder why these particular memories stick when so much else must have been forgotten.