Your summer self.
Bring your summer self to the writing hour today at 9am and treat the writing hour as your summer writing retreat. (Sunglasses and flipflops optional)
Today we say goodbye to June.
Tomorrow we welcome in July.
Sunny June has inspired the July theme: “Your Summer Self”.
Your Summer Self? Yes, you know the one. The freer, soften version of yourself, who sits around a lot, watching bees.
Your Summer Self is about letting the inspiration strike, catching it while it’s still warm, and getting it down in good company.
Think of your writing hours in July as your summer writing retreat in 20 short hours. You can plug in or out as you please. Come to one session, come to all of them, drift in with a notebook and a cup of tea, disappear for a week, come back sun-kissed and full of sentences.
It is a little like that class you take on holiday, where you only meant to try pottery or painting or paddleboarding once, and somehow you find yourself talking to brilliant women, feeling more like yourself, and wondering why ordinary life doesn’t have more of this.
As ever, we’ll be using 20 gentle writing prompts to explore who we are when we stop trying so hard and begin listening again.
Here are a few of the questions we’ll be writing into:
Who am I when I am not rushing?
Who am I when I am not fixing anyone?
Who am I when I am not performing?
Who am I when I am not bracing?
What does my holiday self know?
What do I want when nobody is watching?
Where do I feel most like myself?
What am I allowed to enjoy before everything is sorted?
What would my Summer Self say yes to?
What would my Summer Self stop apologising for?
This is writing as a way back to yourself.
Just a quiet summer room, a good prompt, a little courage, and the strange magic that happens when we write honestly together.
Join us at 9am every Monday to Thursday in July and 7pm on 1st July for a live call
Bring a notebook, a pen, and the version of you who still knows how to want things.
And join us at 9am today for our last June writing hour.
Want to create a writing practice? Come join us at Heart Leap.
If you’ve been meaning to write — your journal, your Substack, your book, your Big Beautiful Thing — but somehow always end up reorganising the fridge instead… welcome home.
At Heart Leap, I host four writing hours a week Monday to Thursday from 9–10am GMT. We chat for five minutes at the start, five at the end, and the rest of the time we simply write together. No pressure or performance, just a calm, friendly corner of the internet where pages get filled and ideas stop hiding.
If you need accountability, a regular rhythm, or a space where other writers are also muttering “why is this so hard?”, you’ll be in excellent company.
We also have a Writing Rehab class on the first Wednesday of the month (THIS WEDNESDAY 1ST JULY) and we run the 12 week Artist’s Way once a year.
If you want 2026 to be the year your writing life finally feels supported, fun and alive, subscribe for £7 a month and come write with us.
(Do subscribe on desktop rather than the app, otherwise Apple charge an extra 30%.)
If you’re already subscribed, here’s the link:
