For the past few years I’ve been working, inside StoryADay programs, on sharing a framework for the writing life that I call I, WRITER.

Now I’m ready to talk about it more widely, in a series of articles, starting today.

The I, WRITER Framework underpins everything I do here to help you build a sustainable, joy-filled writing practice.

What’s Holding You Back?

When I speak with fellow writers about what holds them back, we rarely talk about a lack of writing skills—they have those, and they know they can always improve them by taking classes and getting feedback.

Rather, we end up talking about their frustration with their own perceived lack of progress, success, or ‘motivation’ to stick with their writing practice.

• “I want to write but I can’t seem to find the time”
• “I start projects but I can’t seem to finish them.”
• “I feel like I’ve been working on this one story forever.”
• “I’m not sure I’m ‘meant’ to be a writer.”

Over my decades of being a writer and working with other writers as a workshop leader, speaker, publishing associate, and coach, I’ve come to realise that there’s a very simple reason for this frustration: there’s so much more to “Being a Writer” than the act of putting words on the page.

Being A Writer Is…

Most of us don’t notice or acknowledge all the parts of ‘being a writer’.

Worse, we fail to give ourselves credit for all the hats we’re jamming onto our overcrowded heads. 

We must be:

• Idea machines
• Inventors of worlds – subject-matter experts in all aspects of that from psychology to economic systems and complex societal interactions
• Experts in character creation, suspense, dialogue, pacing, story structure, and descriptive writing, and satisfying conclusions
• Project managers for our own stories
• Administrative assistants who can type and format our work and design filing and retrieval systems for our work
• Time management experts
• Motivational speakers for our tender inner writers
• Harsh-but-fair editors of our own work
• Research assistants, who find publishing opportunities for stories, essays and articles
• Professional persuasive writers who can convince agents and editors to publish our works
• PR professionals who can nurture audiences of readers, including responding to fans and (eventually) managing parasocial relationship with fans online and in the real world
• Technically-savvy enough to do everything from typing to formatting to producing social media content to promote our work
• Productivity analysts who can develop systems for doing all this over and over again through every season of life without losing hope–or our minds.

And all of this in moments stolen from our ‘real lives’, where we must earn a living, keep house, manage family relationships, maintain friendships, and find ways to keep ourselves healthy enough to continue to exist.

Of course we’re overwhelmed and feel like failures.

“Define Success”

I’ve talked a lot, over the years about the need to define success and ‘the dream of being a writer‘ for ourselves.

Some of those markers of success can be external validation (publishing acceptances, positive reviews and feedback, big deals from well-heeled film makers). 

But to sustain a writing practice we must have smaller, daily markers of success that we can point to.

How to decide what those are?

My argument is that there are many different ‘modes’ of being a writer, and that in order to find success we need to feel ourselves being successful in each of them.

Which means, defining them.

The I, WRITER Framework Writing Modes

So here’s how I break down the different modes of ‘being a writer’ in order to help people find success at every stage.

IMAGINE – This is all the work you do to imagine yourself as a writer, give yourself permission to write, as well as the idea-generation parts of our creative work

WRITE – The actual wordsmithing and ‘adding to the word count’ part is the easiest to see as a measure of success or failure. But it’s only one part of your practice.

REFINE – the time you set aside to analyse what’s going well in your writing and your writing practice. This can feel unproductive or like something you can skip in favor of inflating that word count, but Future-You will thank you for the work you do here.

IMPROVE – You’re in this mode on days when you’re  actively working to improve a piece of writing or build our skills through classes and exercises. Again, this can feel like treading water but, when timed correctly, it’s essential.

TRIUMPH – This is the criminally-neglected writing mode of celebrating our successes. Behavioural scientists, psychologists, and yes, even animal trainers, all recommend positive reinforcement to build good habits and behaviour. We must build this into our writing practice, if we want to stick with it.

ENGAGE – Sometimes ‘writing’ looks like engaging with others. Yes, writing can be a solitary act, but if you want to keep at it and be read, you’ll need to spend some of your time engaging with other writers, with readers, with publishing professionals and booksellers. 

REPEAT – You’ll never write the same story the same way twice, but there are parts of the writing life that don’t require creativity, or to be reinvented every time you approach them. Taking time to spot patterns in your writing life and put repeatable systems in place to streamline them all free up your brain to use its best creative energy inside your stories.

It all counts as writing.

Matching Mode + Mood

And here’s the pro tip:  one ‘mode’ of the writing life may feel easier on any given day, depending on your energy and what else you have going on in your life. 

Sometimes a deadline or promise means you have to push through and work in a mode that feels harder than on other days, but the more you allow yourself to work in tune with your own energy, the more joy-filled your writing life will be.

By accepting that there are different ‘modes’ to being a writer, and being willing to allow yourself to feel ‘successful’ in different ways, the more likely you are to stick with this writing thing, and notice the progress you’re making in all the different areas of your writing life.

I’ll be back to talk more about each of these modes, what they look like at every stage of a writing career, and how to be successful in each. But for now, what do you think?

Discussion: How much time do you spend in each of these different modes? Do you allow yourself to ‘count’ all of them as contributing parts of your writing life, or did some of these surprise you? What questions do you have, for me? Comment here.