Why the story we tell ourselves is the most important we’ll ever tell…and the impact it has on our ability to manage our inner critic, imposter syndrome and to get our work done.
Dr. Julie Helmrich, psychologist and founder of Iron Psych specializes in change fluency and narrative, and is my guest this week, talking about psychological fitness for writers.
Culture infuses everything about our world, so ‘world-building’ is an important part of our writing. Today’s prompt encourages you to build a story around a cultural oddity.
Man dressed as a 1920s ganster in police line up
The Prompt
Think about a cultural norm in the world of your story and explore its ramifications for your characters.
In which I talk about why we do this thing we do, and answer the top 10 questions I get asked, at StoryADay (including everything from where to put commas, to how to submit stories, to how to overcome imposter syndrome).
The Prompt: Write the story of an inanimate object.
This prompt was inspired by a conversation with a StoryADay Superstar who had been waiting for a package to arrive for weeks. We speculated about what it had been up to on its travels, and now it’s your turn.
Humans don’t just experience their lives. We infect each other with shared memories of how it felt to be watching historic events or a baby take their first steps. We transmit meaning through emotion, through story.
Getting good at telling stories isn’t trivial. It isn’t frivolous. And it certainly isn’t selfish…
It managed to be about magic and death and unrequited love and #metoo and revenge and yet have a lightness and beauty that I often find missing in modern stories, and which is hard to pull off with those themes.
Welcome to the Serious Writers’ Accountability Group!
Post your goals for this month and let us know how you got on with last month’s goals.
Leave a comment below telling us how you got on last month, and what you plan to do next month, then check back in on the first of each month, to see how everyone’s doing.
(It doesn’t have to be fiction. Feel free to use this group to push you in whatever creative direction you need.)
Examples of Goals Set By SWAGr-ers in previous months
Finish first draft of story and write 3 articles for my school paper. – Courtney
Write on seven days this month – Clare
Extend my reading and to read with a ‘writers eye’- Wendy
write 10,000 words – Mary Lou
So, what will you accomplish this month? Leave your comment below (use the drop-down option to subscribe to the comments and receive lovely, encouraging notifications from fellow StADa SWAGr-ers!)
(Next check-in, 1st of the month. Tell your friends!)
Without a strong emotional story about WHY we are doing it, it’s much, much harder to get through that uncomfortable part in the middle. It’s much more comfortable to scurry back to the way we’ve always done things (of course it is!).
To make meaningful changes, you need to embrace the ugliness of the times you’ve failed in the past, and the emotional reason you want to move forward to a bright, new shiny place.
Use the StoryADay Annual Review Bundle to help you write that emotional story about each goal you set this year AND keep track of your motivation and progress throughout the year.
In the bundle:
Annual Goals Overview Worksheet (set your motto and top goals for the year)