These darker mornings
Dispatch from Writing with the Seasons - October 2024
Welcome to this free, short dispatch from ‘Writing with the Seasons’. If you’re not already a premium subscriber, you can sign up here to enjoy our essays and audio courses as they unfold season by season!
How are you feeling about these darker mornings? Waking before sunrise is not without emotion. Sometimes I’m elated and throw off the covers ready to enter a dreamy, secret world. Or I’m calm and soothed: I wrap myself in a blanket, make tea and read quietly.
Other times, the press of cool air and the black sky seems heavy and strange. I light a lot of candles, turn on all the lamps. In my notebooks, my handwriting is scratchy and odd. I have deep dreams and a sense of urgency to chart them on the page.
Today, I was in central London very early to run a workshop. I walked through a deserted, misty Trafalgar Square before dawn. Clouds hid the full supermoon and instead empty buildings glowed and a spotlight shone in the sky. Gaston Bachelard, in The Poetics of Space, writes of how a solitary lamp that glows in the window at night is an eye open to night. It calls to something inside us, like an image from legend. With so many silent lighted windows, I felt like I was walking through a curious story.
“Run for the thing you’re scared of,” says Jen Calleja, a writer who embraces the dark, feral parts of life. Her essay series ‘Goblinhood’ features '80s fantasy films, David Bowie, Christina Rossetti, Paula Rego, punk and puppets. The book is about goblins and storytelling—all things sneaky, wild, dark and dangerous. These essays swerve and twist, reshape and disorientate you with their sudden moments of truth.
In this darker part of the year, Jen’s work is on my mind. Some writers perfectly match a season! Whereas I can be hesitant in the morning darkness, she’d embrace unease and what it offers the imagination. She wouldn’t hide from strangeness.
Jen joined us at Write & Shine late last year and I’ve been saving this writing prompt to share with you all since then. It needs a dark, mysterious atmosphere, so one to try as soon as you wake this month?
Writing prompt from Jen Calleja: Write a short story about the goblins frolicking in Georg Wilson's painting 'The First Breakfast of Spring' (2022). What’s going on between the figures in the painting? What are they saying (or grunting) to one another? Make sure your goblins have names, do the animals have names too? What different temperatures are going on in this painting? Who's warm, who's cold, who's having their eggs hot and fried and who's having them cold and raw? What was the build-up to the party, what will happen after? (15 mins)
Thanks for reading, and remember to look up at the October full moon!
Gemma x
Jen Calleja’s book about goblins and mischief, pop culture and magic—Goblinhood: Goblin As A Mode—is out now!
This essay is brought to you by Write & Shine, a programme of morning writing workshops and online courses. Our next event series is our Autumn Salon, a week of writing and inspiration from 18-22 November. Autumn artwork is by Rose Wong.