Welcome to the Free 30-Day Hold Onto Your Creativity, Don't Forget Who You Are, and Remember That Art is Resistance Offering
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My hunch is that joy is an ember for or precursor to wild and unpredictable and transgressive and unboundaried solidarity. And that that solidarity might incite further joy. Which might incite further solidarity. And on and on. My hunch is that joy, emerging from our common sorrow — which does not necessarily mean we have the same sorrows, but that we, in common, sorrow — might draw us together. It might depolarize us and de-atomize us enough that we can consider what, in common, we love. And though attending to what we hate in common is too often all the rage (and it happens also to be very big business), noticing what we love in common, and studying that, might help us survive. It’s why I think of joy, which gets us to love, as being a practice of survival.
~Ross Gay, from Inciting Joy
Welcome to the Splendid Mola 30-Day Hold Onto Your Creativity, Don't Forget Who You Are, and Remember That Art Is Resistance offering. I guess you could call this a "challenge," but I don't really love that word when it comes to getting closer to ourselves and our writing and our communities — and also, I'm pretty sure we all have enough challenges right now. So let's stick with offering. This is thirty days of curated 5-minute exercises for writers to help you fortify your heart and your connection to your own creativity in the first days of this new administration. Because who you are and whatever you write matters. Because writing changes the world. Because it's far too easy to let our writing be the last thing on our list, especially right now.
I originally ran this as "The 30-Day Writers Happiness Challenge" in January of 2018. It was my way of helping us all manage the mess of the first time around with this same administration. I've reworked these exercises a little for the current day, but the core of them hasn't changes.
These exercises are geared toward joy. Toward happiness. Toward rediscovering or deepening whatever it is that drives us to create something. For me personally, I find that my best way to write, to live, to work toward more peace, kindness, and equity in the world, and really, just to be who I am, is to allow for and consciously practice the kind of joy Ross Gay speaks to in the quote above. The kind that allows for and is part of all things, born from what we share and holding onto that spark of beauty.
The exercises you’ll find here are not writing prompts in the traditional fashion, although many of them involve writing. Rather, they are designed to help you access a sense of that joy and a deep remembering of self and love that can lead to more creativity and a more spacious sense of time for and around your writing. Each one starts with a quote from a thinker, creator, or philosopher, then segues into the exercise. They only take five minutes each, but if you want more, look for the 100% optional, only-if-you-feel-like-it way to take this exercise throughout the whole day at the end of each one.
It might seem that five minutes a day is nowhere near enough time to change your brain, your attitude, and even your life — but it turns out, it is! Studies now show that the brain needs only two minutes of real attention on something to change its focus, which means that five is a positive luxury! Five minutes is also a short enough time that even the busiest mind would be hard pressed to say, Nope, sorry, no time for that.
But the real reason these are only five minutes a day is so they won’t cut into your writing time. That’s precious for all of us.
These exercises are culled from my odd mish-mosh of backgrounds and studies. I'm a writer; my debut middle grade fantasy adventure, The Circus at the End of the Sea, came out during the pandemic (not a recipe for happiness, let me tell you). I'm a yoga teacher and former studio owner, and the founder of Splendid Mola, a writers' happiness movement that seeks to be a revolutionary refuge for writers. Splendid Mola is my attempt to make sure all writers have access to writing retreats, salons, community, and wellness regardless of financial situation. I hate that so much of that kind of writing support is only available to those with the financial means to afford it. Splendid Mola is meant to be a system as outside of capitalism as I can possibly make it, where all of us support all of us. You can find out more about it here.
I also have a background in marine biologist, love physics and outer space, and am a life-long dancer and music lover. I've read widely on compassion and neuroscience, studied thought leaders and creativity experts, and taken courses with a myriad of masters in different enlightenment traditions.
These exercises pull from all those things. They might be written or meditative or something else entirely, but they are all designed to be short and sweet and hopefully meaningful. There’s a magic that happens when we reconnect with the part of us that knows who we are and what it means to feel good. Call it love, or inspiration, or flow, or whatever you want. But it's that magic these exercises hope to call in. I’m a firm believer that art, creativity, and kindness are what shift the world toward being a place where all of us — humans, animals, and environment — are treated with dignity and love. To me, writing is one of the best ways to build empathy and what I call ferocity of the heart.
Thanks for being here, and for letting your writing matter. Because it does.
Splendid Mola is a revolutionary refuge for writers, created by author Lori Snyder, that offers online and in-person writing retreats, salons, fellowships, yoga, meditation, writing containers, tiny grants, and more. Much of it is free to attend because it is supported by the Mola Fund, a communal pot made up of small donations from anyone who wants to assure that all writers have access to writing support and community, without money determining who gets that and who does not. For more information: www.writershappiness.com and www.splendidmola.com
Lori R Snyder is a writer, speaker, retreat leader, and yoga teacher. She is the founder of Splendid Mola and the Writers Happiness Movement, which are now combined under the one name of Splendid Mola. She is also the author of the middle grade fantasy The Circus at the End of the Sea and expects her second book, another middle grade fantasy with a working title of Zephyr and the Winds of Time, to be out in 2026 (but you know how that goes, sometimes.). You can find her author info at lorirsnyderauthor.com.