The Value of Virtual Co-Writes
So simple. Devastatingly effective.
Everyone declares their intention for the allotted time. They go on mute. They do it. They circle back to share.
So simple. Devastatingly effective.
Virtual co-writes went from a neat little idea to the cornerstone of my writing practice. If it weren’t for virtual co-writes, I would not have been able to rewrite my novel in seven months while working and enduring the pandemic.
What is a virtual co-write?
Different groups adopt different structures, but they are roughly the same:
Log in to the virtual meeting
Brief check-ins where each participant states their intention for the allotted time
Everyone goes on mute and, presumably, gets to work.
With a few minutes to go, the host facilitates a check-out where everyone shares how they did.
At first, I thought their effectiveness stemmed from accountability – that sober cousin of shame. However, after having attended several hundred co-writes and having hosted around half that number, I realize the appeal is much more subtle.
What makes them so good?
“Community” is often talked about, but the word can lose meaning through overuse. For me, it had become a buzzword that meant little. The virtual co-writes allowed me to rediscover its fuller meaning.
Humans are alone, in our bodies and our consciousness, and yet we are social, in our networks and our shared memories and knowledge. As writers, there are times when the sense of loneliness is sharpened. We may feel like we are space shuttles drifting in endless blackness, light-years from each other. A much-documented side-effect of modernity is the deepening of this isolation. And while it’s sometimes fun to be off on your own, spinning a web that only you understand, at some point, we may feel untethered.
This isolation can produce paralyzing doubt, especially with a long project. Sometimes, doubt prevails, nudging me from my creative work to email, to my calendar – the maintenance of life. Those things are important, of course. But the whole point of allotting time to creative work is to NOT do those things.
The doubt is a consequence of an internal conflict that I will probably never fully shake. I fight the sense that writing is….selfish and pointless. There are countless books in the world. Do people really need another one? And who am I to write it?
But when I look up and on my screen I see five or ten people diligently working on their own projects, I think, “Well, if they value themselves enough to invest in their own endeavors – and I respect them; I don’t think they’re selfish – then maybe I can keep at it for the next five minutes.”
Inevitably, those five minutes become the whole session.
This solidarity I call ‘caveman energy.’ To me, it brings to mind a group of ice-age nomads huddled around a fire. It’s the sense that we are not alone in this star-filled universe. Though the world out there is large and dark and impossible to know, you can surround yourself with like-minded tribespeople. You can draw on them for warmth and energy. And together, you will weave yarns to survive future ice ages and pandemics.
If you are at all inspired to give this modality a go, please don’t hesitate to join Office of Modern Composition’s weekly co-write. They’re hosted by me, Raghav, every Thursday from 10–11:30 am CDT and every Monday from 5:30 – 7 pm CDT.
Written by Raghav Rao
Illustration by Sophie Lucido Johnson
Office of Modern Composition is a Chicago-based writing studio that both makes compositions and fosters composers. We offer one-on-one coaching for writers and also take on commissions for things you need to have written. We also offer free events like our in-person and online co-writes.
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