Fancy a virtual writers' retreat?

You do? Be quick!

Just as I sat down to write this issue of the Museletter, an email notification popped up on my screen. Ah, the cheery ping of a new message, swiftly followed by the heart sink that the words ‘Breaking News’ can induce these days.

It was news I had sort of been expecting; Northern Ireland’s current lockdown restrictions have been extended until March 5th. It feels like they might as well have told us it’s forever. I knew it was coming, of course, but it’s somehow tougher to stomach when it’s staring you in the face and you’re alone at your desk as darkness falls on yet another day indoors.

I’ve written here before about how being around other freelance journalists saved me when the first lockdown happened. Since then, my reliance on our little community of writers has only grown. I know it’s cheesy, but our interactions help me cope. 

A gleeful message from a writer about an unexpected commission that has restored her faith for another day. A hilarious anecdote about the freelancing and homeschooling juggle. An admission that someone is struggling. The touching flurry of empathy and support that follows. The sense that I am not alone, and that we are cheering one another on.

I know what you’re thinking. Oh no, here comes the hard sell to join said community. With a hefty membership fee and *only* 24 hours to join our sales funnel before we start spamming you about how much you’re going to miss out on unless you let us siphon a sum you might forget about from your bank account each month. Nah.

Because the pandemic shifted things for us. In all the ways it has for you too, I’m sure. But when it comes to Muse Flash, our sense of purpose pivoted. We slashed the price on our pitching course to make it affordable for people who found themselves suddenly freelancing without really knowing how to pitch. We drastically cut the cost of our webinars – even though we’re total believers in knowing your worth and then adding VAT – because lending our support to people in a pandemic sat better with us than prospering from it. And we started running free Zoom sessions for our Facebook community because, well, it just felt the right thing to do. (No-one tell our career coach.)

All of which made us realise something important: for people who run a business together, the one thing we’re NOT very good at is selling. We used to think we’d run global kick-ass online courses and then retire on the passive income that rolled into our bank accounts as we slept. I mean, we still wouldn’t say no to that.

But what we’re pretty good at is building community. And while that doesn’t put food on the table, we think it’s every bit as important. After all, what use is making money and nourishing your body if, meanwhile, the rest of you is quietly fading away?

Here comes the hard sell, that’s not really a ‘sale’ at all. It’s an invitation. Ok, with a nominal fee attached…

As you probably know by now, we’ve been running Muse Flash online courses, mentoring programmes and webinars for freelance writers for five years now. We’ve been scheming and dreaming about running fabulous in-person retreats for writers and pitching workshops for just as long. We’d even found the perfect location and started working on dates, and then the pandemic hit.

So for the last year, that big old barn in the Lake District has been a pipe dream. We started toying with the idea of running a virtual retreat. Except: Zoom fatigue. So last week, on a whim, we did the next best thing and started a WhatsApp chat for our closed Facebook group. And boy, do they like to chat in there. More than once I’ve had to wave at my kids when they’re in the midst of a maths dilemma to indicate that I am *very* busy with Muse Flash work. (Read: discussing the merits of cold water swimming and what everyone’s having for dinner.)

At first I thought the WhatsApp group wouldn’t see much action or that I’d end up muting it because of the way WhatsApp chats can go. You know what I mean. Wrong. Folks have opened up even more in there, dropping in to seek solidarity on a bad day or just sharing their thoughts as you would in the good old days when freelancers used to work in co-working spaces and chat in coffee shops. This week we swapped tips we’d heard for coping with working at home in silence – ask Spotify to play cafe sounds, if you’re missing that coffee shop buzz. We sort of watched the inauguration together in an impromptu fashion – snippets of stolen conversation pinged back and forth as we all tried to meet deadlines in between wiping away tears and fangirling Amanda Gorman.

Yep. Talking to other people who get what’s racing through my head has helped me to make sense of things. And it’s not just therapeutic for me; I know from the steady stream of messages that other people feel as invested in these relationships, despite most of us never having met, as I do.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a snippet or two from the things people have said to us this week:

‘There is something empathic at the heart of Muse Flash, something equalising where the two of you have insight and authority but don’t talk from a position of power that I really find so helpful.’

‘I just love this group. It’s like one big warm hug with extra brains and sass thrown in.’

‘The people in this group are beginning to feel like old friends.’

From there, one of our community sent us an email suggesting a lovely way of taking the chat to the next level, and we started to think about weaving a virtual retreat around that idea. And then, in a moment of beautiful serendipity, another Muse Flasher emailed to make a similar suggestion, and the thing took on a life of its own.

So here it is. The Muse Flash Virtual Retreat is happening next month! Wednesday 10th February, 11am-4pm. Tickets are £100 but worth four times that – truly. We’ve put together a treat of a day, with a smattering of feel-good but kickass sessions run by us – we know you’d expect nothing less – as well as some cracking guest contributors.

One of our longest-standing Muse Flash members will be opening her Lockdown Trattoria to bring us Pasta & Zen, a cookery demonstration live from her home in Italy. You can cook along with her and enjoy the fruits of your labour during our lunch break, or just open a nice Italian red and watch her work.

Rachael Martin's Lockdown Trattoria: Pasta & Zen
Rachael Martin is a travel and food writer who'll be cooking up a tart's spaghetti at lunchtime, and showing us all what to do with the leftovers. Enter her Lockdown Trattoria for her cookery demo where Rachael will help you bring a bit of zen to your kitchen by way of easy, fuss-free pasta dishes. She'll also be sharing a few cultural titbits and tips on how to rock your kitchen like a true Italian mamma. 

Rachael has lived just north of Milan for over twenty years. You can find her on Instagram at @rachinitaly and over at her blog www.northernitaliandiaries.com Her book The Fashion Lover's Guide to Milan will be published on 31 March 2021 and is available for pre-order here. 

We’ve even got a creative play and movement session lined up to help relax your lockdown limbs and revive your creativity.

Our favourite bit – we’re curating a little box of treats which will be posted to you (unless you’re on the other side of the world, then we might need you to collect it…) for you to enjoy on the day. I’m very excited about this, having just secured a little something I think you’ll love.

Look, I’m going to be blunt. We’re not doing this to make money. It’s unlikely to make a profit but we hope your £100 will cover the costs and the time we’ve spent on late night frantic emails about how the hell to pull this off between our own homeschooling and freelance commitments. But if you sign up for this, you’ll get access to the Facebook group AND the WhatsApp chat, if you want it.

Everyone’s welcome. If you fancy it but feel weird about Zooming with strangers, please don’t. We’re a welcoming bunch and the vibe is irreverent and informal. It’ll feel like being among friends. Unless you’ve got really stuffy friends.

Come. Tell your friends. But be quick! We opened the Virtual Retreat bookings for our WhatsApp chat and Facebook group yesterday so there are only a handful of places left. We won’t be adding any more, because we’ve already placed orders for the goody box items, and we might call the whole thing off if that gets any more complicated than it already is. And if we don’t sell those final places, we’ll have A LOT of spare notebooks kicking around our offices. And we’ll start hiking up prices for everything else to claw back what we’ve spent on sodding boxes...

We all need to make money, and the purpose of Muse Flash will always be to help you do that. We’re not coaches or wellbeing practitioners and we don’t pretend to be – there are many more qualified people to go to if that’s what you need. We’re established freelance writers and the main breadwinners in our households, and our careers have kept our families fed for almost 15 years now. Our passion will always be empowering other people to build sustainable freelance writing careers that they love, and we’re proud to say that’s well worth what we charge. But sometimes, such as in a pandemic, purpose matters more than profit.

So here it is. Your invitation to join our gang. Click here to book your ticket. Go, go go!

See you there? Do email us (museflashtraining@gmail.com) with any questions or comments – we love hearing from you.

Heidi & Hazel
Muse Flash Media
www.museflash.academy

A piece of advice we valued
This isn’t an especially uplifting piece (read when you’re not feeling bleak) but it helped us understand our feelings at this point in lockdown.

A piece we loved writing
Saving isn’t sexy but penning this for the Guardian gave me lots to think about – and prompted me to finally sort out my pension.

A piece we loved reading
I’m bookmarking this brilliant piece by Muse Flasher Emma Reed on long-haul homeschooling.

A podcast we enjoyed
Treat your ears to this delight, if you haven’t already.

Muse Flashers we’re especially proud of
We love Jenny Stallard, a journalist, coach and Muse Flasher, for putting into words what we’ve all been feeling about Clubhouse this week.