How Does Writing in the Dark Work?

Writing in the Dark offers a variety of content at free, paid, and full access membership levels. You can get a quick sense of our offerings by browsing the Writing in the Dark Index.

Free

  • Personal essays, interviews with working writers and creatives, and long (free) previews of paid Monday Lit Salon and Wednesday Writing Lab posts as well as free previews to craft content from seasonal intensive posts.

Paid

Paid Subscribers Receive All the Free Content Plus …

  • Lit Salon: Everything you ever wanted to know about creative writing and the creative life but were afraid to ask. This Monday feature is like a cross between an advice column and an “ask-me-anything,” with valuable craft essays thrown in as needed. I write each Lit Salon in response to your specific and personal questions (culled from post comments as well as questions emailed directly to me) about writing, the writing life, and creativity in general. Readers love this feature and say things like: “As always, Jeannine, your words of wisdom are gold” and “Mesmerizing. What a way to start the week. I’m grateful, thank you!”

  • Writing Lab + Exercises: Every Wednesday you receive an in-depth craft essay on a specific element of creative writing plus and an inventive, structured writing exercise related to that craft essay. These essays and exercises are unlike most others you have seen before. Based on the theory of literary constraints and structured exercises, these prompts are designed to take you to entirely new places in your writing. Never will you receive a prompt asking you to, for example, “Write about a time when you were afraid.” While there’s nothing wrong with those prompts, Writing in the Dark is about moving beyond what we know and edging out of our comfort zone. It’s about how, through the rigorous observation of concrete specifics, we access the abstract and divine. It’s about discovering the story five degrees to the left of the one we think we know. It’s about peering over the edge of doubt—and all this applies to all genres of writing: creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and hybrid/experimental. All are welcome. Readers love Writing Lab + Prompts and say things like: “I'm learning about writing in the most inventive way and more deeply than I ever have before. For that, I thank you endless times” and “I'm still here and still reading your beautiful and inspiring posts and breathing though my tendency to tamp down my own creativity by comparing it to others.”

  • Seasonal Writing Intensives: These intensives are like full-fledged writing classes delivered in a series of posts on a predetermined schedule. Recent examples from 2023 & 2024 include The Visceral Self Intensive for Embodied Writing, Story Challenge, Essay in 12 Steps Challenge the 30-Day Creativity Challenge. These intensives are thoughtful, thorough, clear, strange, and inspiring. Readers love our intensives! One participant said, “The Creativity Challenge fundamentally and permanently changed the way I think about writing.”

  • Our Thriving Comments Section: Writing in the Dark is a highly interactive Substack, where readers share craft questions, challenges, snippets of work, helpful advice, encouragement, inspiration, and even friendship. I myself participate regularly in the comments by answering your questions and offering feedback. To keep the comments troll-free, participation is for paying subscribers only.

  • The full archive of past posts and all the content of past seasonal intensives.

Full Access Membership

At Substack’s Founding Member Level, You Receive All Paid Content Plus …

  • This level is like having coffee in my living room with a community of whole-hearted creatives. You have regular access to direct, real-time interaction with me and during Zoom Q & As and Zoom open mic readings. You also get Voice & Video Memos I create in direct response to readers’ most pressing questions. This level is by far the closest approximation to working with me as a mentor or in one of my workshops or retreats. This level is where you get to have “my voice in your ear.”

    • Live Zoom Salons are held during seasonal intensives and are an incredible opportunity to get fast feedback and direct answers to questions while you’re making new work, while also interacting with other WITD community members and participating in open-mic readings. They’re lively, interactive, and fun!

    • Voice/Video Memos are recordings that I create in response to the questions, comments, and craft challenges that come up in response to seasonal challenges and Writing Lab + Prompts posts. I research in response to the question, then converse out loud, in-depth, and in direct response to your specific needs and interests, sometimes with another writer for added dimension. Voice & Video memos very in length and topic but they’ll always intersect directly with what’s coming up in our WITD intensives and/or your questions and comments and conversations on other posts here.

    • Billie Oh’s Growing Catalogue of Audio & Video Meditations & Playlists offers enhancements to the writing posts, especially for the embodied writing intensive.

Most of All

Paid memberships make the Writing in the Dark community possible. I know not everyone can afford $7/month, and if that’s you, reach out and let us know and we’ll comp you. On the other hand, if you can afford to give a subscription to someone who needs it, or even donate a gift subscription, that keeps this community accessible to all. Thank you!