Hey friends 🤍 I owe you a quick note. The last few weeks have been loud. Moving. Job shifts. House resets. Going over poetry collection proofs (the glamorous and not-so-glamorous parts). A little bit of life pulling me in five directions at once. And while everything has been moving forward behind the scenes, I know I’ve been quieter here than I like to be. That’s on me. This space matters to me — and so do the conversations happening inside it. I haven’t disappeared. I’ve just been navigating a very full season. Over the weekend, I’ll be catching up intentionally: • Responding to every post and comment • Reviewing shared work • Re-engaging with the threads I missed • Checking in where I owe encouragement or feedback If you’ve been waiting on me, thank you for your patience. Truly. We’re building something steady here. Not rushed. Not performative. Real. And sometimes real life requires a brief pause before returning with clarity. I’m excited to settle back in with you. Tell me — what’s one win you’ve had this week, even a small one? I want to celebrate it. — M.

What’s the strangest place inspiration has ever found you? Some of my best lines have shown up when I didn’t have my notebook, my “writer mood,” or even a second to breathe. Inspiration is honestly feral. It doesn’t knock. It breaks in. Maybe it found you: in the shower in a doctor’s office waiting room half-asleep at 3AM at work (when you absolutely were not supposed to be thinking about poetry) in the middle of an argument in the grocery store aisle holding pasta like it held your entire life together ✨ Tell us: what’s the strangest place inspiration ever hit you—and what did it give you? A line? A scene? A character? A whole plot? Bonus points if you drop the line/idea you captured from that moment 👀

Welcome to The Gilded Ink Parlor — I’m so glad you’ve stepped inside. This is our shared sanctuary for stories, creativity, curiosity, and the strange little sparks that keep us writing, reading, and dreaming. Let’s begin gently. If you feel comfortable, introduce yourself in the comments: ✨ Your name (or pen name) ✨ What kind of writing you do — poetry, fiction, journaling, essays, anything at all ✨ Or, if you don’t write, what you love to read ✨ And: what inspired you to step into this community? There’s no pressure to be polished here. Come as you are — messy drafts, bold ideas, soft questions and all. Whether you’re a writer, a reader, or someone who simply loves beautiful language, you belong in this room. Pull up a chair. Light settles. We’re listening.

🖋️Do you • outline everything like you’re laying railroad tracks through the dark, • wander sentence by sentence and trust the fog to part, • or follow a chaotic map only you can read—arrows, fragments, half-notes in the margins? There’s no correct answer here. Only the way your mind breathes when it writes. Some of us need structure to feel safe. Some of us need freedom to feel honest. Some of us swear we’ll “clean it up later” and never quite do (iconic behavior). ✨ Tell us which one feels closest to you—and if you’ve ever tried writing against your instincts. Did it unlock something? Or did it feel like wearing someone else’s coat? This is a parlor, not a podium. Pull up a chair. I want to know how your magic gets made.

Some stories don’t just take time— they take pieces of you. Writing trauma, grief, rage, survival… it can feel like reopening a wound just to make something beautiful out of it. So I’m curious: How do you write emotionally heavy material without burning out? Do you… write in short bursts and step away? “buffer” heavy scenes with lighter ones? keep boundaries between your life and your work? debrief after writing (music, movement, journaling)? write it anyway and deal with the emotional aftermath later? If you’ve learned anything through experience—drop it below. Your process might be the exact thing another writer here needs right now. (And if you don’t have a process yet? That’s okay too. This is how we find one.)