Just lately, writing has become lovely again. Just a small amount, low pressure. Then a couple of ‘stars aligned’ moments happened, and suddenly there was the absolute certainty that I should do this in May. “This” being a free, no-pressure-no-promises month of writing-ish things, for women with a million ideas and differently wired brains.
Made by a woman with a million ideas, in the last couple of days. I’m so excited to share it with you!
You used to write. You loved it. But somehow all your energy seems to get used up on the other stuff — like laundry. And avoiding meal planning.
You think it’s too late to do something new. (Spoiler: it is not.)
You’re scared of hearing “Not another new hobby?” from someone you love, who clearly should have thought that through first.
You hoard notebooks like an addict yet cannot bring yourself to open them.
You’ve bought courses. Lots of courses. Some of them very expensive. You’ve even started some of them.
You effortlessly write Slack messages, precise work emails, other people’s copy, witty school WhatsApp replies, and essay-length text messages to your group chat. When you sit down to your creative work, your nervous system shrieks like a banshee and it suddenly seems really hard.
You’ve got various half-finished novel/essay/blog/Substack/diary/document on your laptop and the file name alone makes you wince.
Or no, it doesn’t, because you’ve buried it in a folder calledadminso you don’t have to see it.Just me?You tell yourself you’re lazy. You’re like the opposite of lazy, going a million miles at all times - internally, sometimes externally.
You tell yourself you have no talent. You have no idea whether you have talent because you haven’t given yourself any conditions under which talent could survive. And you flinch at the word ‘potential’.
I see you. I’m waving. I’m right beside you. (Not in a creepy way. Promise.)
When I look for and claim space for writing — even tiny spaces — it opens up something for me. I feel lighter. My brain starts firing, making connections. The glimmers show themselves more readily.
What if we try learning to trust ourselves again, being our own source of validation? Living in our bodies and overcoming years of conditioning about not valuing our work. Opening the notebook, the file, and taking a deep breath, exhaling.
We can be brave.
We can start.
We can give ourselves all the gold stars.
Here’s the truth: I run Write Club. I coach writers. I have a Substack with people leaving the kind of comments that make me cry into my coffee. I also, on a regular basis, do not write for weeks at a time and then give myself hell for it.
The advice that gets handed out — write every day, sit down at the same time, make it a habit, just start, just push through, just finish — does not work for brains like mine. (PDA-flavoured AuDHD brains, in particular, hear “you should” and immediately decide the only reasonable response is to lie face-down on the floor.)
What does work, when I let it, is following the thing that’s lighting me up. Writing when I’m excited. Letting it be flaky and inconsistent and mine.
So: MAY-be. The clue’s in the name. Maybe you’ll write every day. Maybe you’ll write twice the whole month. Maybe you’ll just lurk and read what other people are doing. All of it counts.
And you’ll have company. Other women, mostly 40-something-and-up, mostly late-diagnosed in some configuration of neurodivergent, all trying our best.
A free, month-long, low-pressure container for writers who’ve fallen out with the page, want to peep around the door back in, and don’t want to be hustled or bullied into it.
It all happens on my Substack — so if you’re already subscribed, you’re basically already in. If you’re not, a free subscribe via the app or the website is the whole admission process.
During May, you’ll get:
Stars Chart. Forget streaks and challenges, this is a place you note your glimmers and award yourself all the gold stars. A May calendar PDF to print off and scribble on.
Prompts. Short, curious; never homework, not daily. Really just a reminder of the invitation. The kind you can ignore for nine days and then suddenly write 437 words about on a Tuesday afternoon. No catching-up. No shame about which day you did which one or if you got into a hyperfocus and tackled seven of them.
A welcome Zoom to kick us off. Optional. Camera on, off, whatever. (If you can’t make it live, I’ll send out the recording and a soft hello.)
Mid-month workshops. Short sessions with practical advice on writing rituals, the importance of reflection and organising your writing life.
End of month Reflection Zoom: a cosy space to reflect on what you noticed during the month, how you felt about awarding yourself gold stars, whether you tried anything new. A celebration!
Essays, notes, surprises from me, all month. Honest ones. About what I’m noticing, what’s working, what’s falling over, and what I keep relearning about doing this badly enough to keep doing it.
That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
A boot camp.
A challenge that will make you feel worse if you don’t finish.
A funnel into a £1,997 mastermind. (There is no mastermind. I am not the mastermind. Yet.)
A productivity system.
A guarantee that you’ll have written A Thing by 1st June.
Any pressure to do any of it, but lots of cheering if you do.
A place where anyone is going to ask why you haven’t done the prompt.
If you want a strict 30-day daily-writing challenge with daily check-ins and prompts and a streak counter — excellent stuff; I am not the woman you need.
If you’ve got a folder of stickers you’ve been itching to use or a nearby discount store selling gold stars, you are my people and let’s do this.
You miss writing the way you’d miss a friend. (Writing didn’t ghost you, hush.)
You’re exhausted by being mean to yourself about it.
Some company sounds great. A bunch of people doing the thing together. Who can all talk at the same time if they need to, and miraculously hear seven conversations simultaneously.
You’ve fallen for the “transform your writing life in 30 days” nonsense before. (Same. Boo.)
You’re a wired, tired, shows-up-when-she-can writer and you feel like, maybe that’s allowed here.
You want a structured course with modules and me to award you a certificate at the end.
You’re looking for line-edits or fiction craft teaching.
The phrase “no pressure” makes you suspicious it’s a trap. (Fair. Also, still no pressure.)
Hi. I’m Gail. I write Whizzy Brain on Substack. I’m late-diagnosed AuDHD with a PDA flavour, Irish, living in London, swimming in cold water when I can get to it, growing things at the allotment, binge reading fantasy series, ogling stationery online, and writing about the rollercoaster that is late diagnosed neurodivergence (and then not writing about any of it for three weeks, and then writing again).
I have a Master’s in publishing from a long enough time ago that I learned to format manuscripts with em-dashes from Judith Butcher’s guide to copy-editing, first published 1975. I’ve been a commissioning editor at a Big 5 publisher, been paid to write about wine, chocolate, and coffee, coached writers, hosted Write Club, and I am still — still — figuring out my own creative life in real time, in front of you, badly, wholeheartedly and with hope, still.
I’m not above you. I’m next to you.
Free. Genuinely.
A free subscribe to my Substack is the entire entry fee. I’m running it because I want to, because May feels like the right month for it, and because I think a lot of us need this and because I got really excited about it.
In the spirit of full disclosure: in June, I’m running a paid follow-on in a slightly different for anyone who’s ready to do a little more — co-working sessions, a bit more structure, more of me, more of each other. I’ll mention it once or twice in the closing days of May. That is the entire upsell. There is no scarcity timer, no Founding Member badge, no tiered pricing tower. Show up to May-BE, take what’s useful, and decide absolutely nothing about June until June.
Do I have to write every day?
No. Please don’t. (Unless you want to. In which case, sure.)
Do I have to share what I’m working on, or what I’ve written?
Blimey, no! Would never put you on the spot like that.
What if I sign up and then ghost?
Never a problem. Frankly, I feel haunted most of the time. You can re-emerge in your corporeal form any day in May, including the 31st.
What time zone is the welcome call and any workshops?
UK time. Any sessions that are recorded go out afterwards, unedited.
What happens after May?
For anyone who wants more — co-working sessions, a bit of structure, the same room with a bit more scaffolding — I’m running a paid version in June. You don’t have to do it. You don’t have to think about it during May. If you’d rather not hear about it, mute me for the last week of the month and we’re all good.
Can I just lurk?
Yes. With or without intent.
What if I’m not a “real” writer?
If you write, you’re a writer. If you want to write, you’re a writer. There is no real-writer committee, and if there were I would be throwing rotten tomatoes at it. Or bindweed, tomatoes go in the compost bin.
Is this for fiction or non-fiction or…?
Yes. Whatever you write, or used to write, or want to write. Bring it.
What if I sign up and chicken out?
Then you’ve lost nothing and I’m not going to chase you. Pinky promise.
The thing about writing — the thing nobody told us, or the thing we knew once and forgot — is that it’s not supposed to feel like punishment. It can be one of the loveliest things in your week. It can be the thing you sneak off to do instead of the thing you should be doing. It can be how you find out what you think.
We’ve been so thoroughly sold the idea that writing is suffering, that real writers grind, that if it’s easy it doesn’t count, that if you’re not bleeding onto the page you’re not doing it right, that we’ve forgotten the obvious thing. Which is that humans have been telling stories around fires, scribbling in margins, writing letters to each other, journalling in the bath, and making each other laugh on paper for thousands of years, because it’s nice.
May-BE it can be nice again. May-BE just for a month. May-BE just on the days you feel like it.
I’d love it if you came.
PS — If you read all of that and your throat went a bit tight, that’s the thing. That’s the bit that misses writing. Bring her with you.
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