This week I became aware of a project from fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson: a “challenge coin” offered freely to anyone struggling with depression, that a, is a beautiful collectible item and b, contains a QR code link to resources to help people with mental health issues.
(You can find out more here. If you are someone who deals with depression, you can get the coin for free. If you just like Brandon Sanderson and want to support his work—or collect All The Things—you can buy a coin there, too. There is no ‘test’. You are invited to self-select.)
The Arts As Their Own Reward? Yes, and…
I’m a big fan of encouraging people to write for it’s own sake: for the rewards you get from the process.
But that doesn’t mean I think you’re somehow ‘selling out’ if you want to make a living from your craft.
In fact, if that’s your path, I hope you make a fortune from your writing.
I think writers are exactly the kind of people who should be successful and rich.
Brandon Sanderson is an example of how that success can look, in the hands of someone who spends all their time thinking hard about what makes humans tick (i.e. a writer).
Do The Work
Dreams of fame and fortune, and all the good you’ll do with them, are lovely, and can be inspiring in the tough times, when you’re starting at the fourth revision of a manuscript, wondering if you’re making it better or worse.
But you still have to do the work.
Sanderson didn’t become rich and successful on the strength of having written one book. He writes a LOT. Obsessively, in fact.
You do not have to write obsessively in order to become successful–there are plenty of examples of people who have a slightly more balanced approach and still do fine–but you do have to write.
Actually-Writing,
Really-Revising,
Courageously-Engaging with the publishing industry/readers,
These must be serious activities for you, if you want success as a writer.
Don’t Go It Alone
Another lesson from Sanderson that I’ve noticed over the years is that he doesn’t try to do it alone.
He worked to develop his own style, but then he went to conferences to learn the business.
He formed a podcast with other writers, to share what they knew with the community of writer-admirers.
He formed a company to deal the the growing business demands of being a prolific and successful author.
In his announcement about the challenge coins I noticed a lot of ‘we’ language.
He came up with the idea, but it was clear that there’s a team behind him coming up with smart ideas (like: what should go into the resource page; what to do about the tension between their desire to give them away to people who need them and also satisfy people who just wanted the coins because they’re collectors…)
The myth of the solitary writers is just that…a myth.
The only stories about solitary writers I can think of are stories that don’t end happily. Any successful, modern author’s ‘acknowledgments’ section runs to several pages.
How We Do It
Here in StoryADay-land, we get together to write every May: taking on a huge, ridiculous challenge, just to see what we’re made of. We post about our successes and our less-than-successes. We share and commiserate.
And we do workshops and hangout and co-working writing dates together, because doing this together is just way more fun. And more sustainable.
I hope you have a supportive community of writers around you.
And if not, keep your eye on your inbox for an invitation to join us for an end-of-year get together for the StoryADay community, that will also help you plan for a 2026 you can be excited about.
A Fun Thought Experiment
What would you do with your fame and fortune if you made it big? Leave a comment and let us know!
Keep writing,
Julie
P. S. Need more practice turning everyday moments into key scenes in your stories? Consider the StoryAWeek newsletter: 52 weekly lessons and writing prompts.Find out more.
In his 2003 Nobel Prize Banquet speech, honoree and author J. M. Coetzee used his moment on the stage to reflect on what a shame it was his parents hadn’t lived to see this day:
“Why must our mothers be ninety-nine and long in the grave before we can come running home with the prize that will make up for all the trouble we have been to them?”
I thought this was an odd, and dispiriting way to thank the Nobel committee.
Perhaps it struck me because I lost my dad in the summer and am going through the process of getting used to not being able to tell him things and see the reaction on his face.
But what I know in my bones is that, though he would have been tickled pink by my current and future achievements, his pride in me was based on who I am, not any big outcome, or prize. (And yes, I know I was privileged to have pretty awesome parents.)
It’s Not The Prizes
It’s not the big moments that make up a life—or a writing practice.
It’s the millions of tiny decisions and actions we take, day after day, that tell people who we are, and that add up to a life.
It doesn’t matter if your writing goes well today. It matters that you did it.
It doesn’t matter if you wrote 5,000 words today. It matters that you come back and add more words, soon.
It doesn’t matter if your first draft is ropey. It matters that you finish; that you summon up the courage to revise it, and revise it again; that you decide you are bold enough to share it.
It doesn’t matter if your writing is ‘on trend’. It matters that you spend your time working on something that delights you—even as it frustrates you; something that only you could write.
In the letter, surgeon and cancer researcher Dr. Michael Baum recounts how, while attending a performance of Stoppard’s play Arcadia, he was introduced to Chaos Theory, which changed his thought process about a thorny problem in treating breast cancer. He ends the letter,
“Stoppard never learnt how many lives he saved by writing Arcadia.”
Prizes are nice.
Publication acceptances are nice.
Being able to make some money from your writing may, or may not be, nice depending on how you feel about turning your avocation into a job.
But writing is weird.
It’s a way to place our ideas into the heads of people we’ll never meet.
It’s a method for manipulating the emotions of people in a future we might not see.
It’s a stone cast into a vast pond, causing ripples we can’t possibly track.
The Point
The work is the point.
The work is the starting point.
We might never receive the prizes, the publication, or the acclaim, but we can certainly never receive them if we don’t build the habit of doing the work.
And doing the work has to matter enough to you that you would do it even if you never hear that your parents are proud of you or that you saved lives with your writing.
You may never know what you writing means to other people.
What does your writing mean to you, and can you find a way to make that ‘enough’?
Keep writing,
Julie
P. S. Need more practice turning everyday moments into key scenes in your stories? Consider the StoryAWeek newsletter: 52 weekly lessons and writing prompts.Find out more.
It’s the middle of the challenge and it’s started to kick in: that creative flywheel effect that happens when we make an effort to do more creative work.
I’m writing to you today because writing this challenge has my brain sparking!
Not only have I been writing my stories, but I’ve been sharing insights from myself and other writers, throughout the challenge. During May 2025 I recorded video updates on what was coming up for me, and posted them here.
I thought you might find some of it inspiring/useful, so I’m sending you this ‘table of contents’ to help you find something to watch/listen to, this weekend, that’s tailored to exactly where you are, in your writing journey.
Browse the contents, pick a topic, pop in your headphones, and listen as you go about your business this weekend.
In Which I Talked About: The weird paradox that, as writers, we must believe that we have something to say, but also somehow be OK with writing the imperfect first draft. I also talk about ‘boring brilliance’ and how to think about routines in a way that won’t make you stabby.
Recommended if You… are having trouble getting started, struggling with confidence, or need permission to be imperfect.
In Which I Talked About: My secret trick for making flash fiction, uh, flash; the importance of character desire, and choosing the right story structure.
Recommended if You… are stuck, need a quick win, or are new to writing tiny tales.
In Which I Talked About: If you find yourself resisting writing to prompts, you don’t have to…but here’s why you might want to give them a try. Also: how knitting mistakes helped me rethink perfectionism in writing.
Recommended if You… feel bored, uninspired, or ready to give up because it’s “not going well.”
In Which I Talked About: Stepping away if you need to–just not for too long. Plus: some ways to get reinvigorated (without having to do anything that feels like work).
Recommended if You… are feeling drained and need a reset and want to get inspired, without getting jealous of other writers’ successes.
In Which I Talked About: How writing even these quick’n’dirty stories during May has sparked creativity for other projects and fired up the engine of inspiration.
Recommended if You… feel like you’ve ‘fallen behind’ and are wondering if your commitment to yourself was worth it. Also encouraging if you’re juggling short stories and longer projects.
In Which I Talked About: Channeling frustration, anger, or heartbreak into creative action—writing stories that imagine better worlds or provide a path forward. Recommended if You… are overwhelmed by world events or life, and need a way to turn that energy into something constructive.
In Which I Talked About: Embracing imperfection, and using limits to reduce overwhelm and reignite your creativity.
Recommended if You… feel like it’s too late to make anything of this month, or that you’ve somehow ‘failed’. If you’re itching to start a new project instead of finishing this one. Perhaps you simply need to tweak your rules for the rest of the challenge…
Wherever you are in your writing journey this month, I hope you’ll keep showing up—for your creativity, your voice, and yourself.
Do you lead an unremarkable life? Great! Use that to connect with readers!
I spent a lot of time in Scotland this year, for family reasons.
Any time I could, I went outside: to walk in the woods – swinging my arms carefully to avoid the tall, triangle-leafed stinging nettles or stooping to squeeze between my fingers the low-growing wild garlic.
On other days I was magnetically drawn to the coastline – making my way over the dunes or rocks, through the powdery, dry sand that shifts underfoot, to the glistening ridges of packed sand beyond the high-tide line of stranded bladderwort seaweed.
Crouch down above the high-tide line to dig your fingers into the sand and you’ll first feel the warm, granular top layer, that seems soft and forgiving, only to quickly encounter a harder layer of cool, damp sand, resisting you. Dig closer to the water line and the wet sand will flow in and close around your wrist, like it wants you to stay.
The Writer’s Lens
Consider the last line of the previous paragraph. Is the landscape I wrote about friendly? Or is its grip sinister?
If this was a story, you’d have to keep reading to find out.
As a writer it’s almost impossible to write about any experience without it turning into a metaphor for something else. We can’t help ourselves.
And that’s exactly what I want you to remember this week.
Writing Is About Creating Connections
Sometimes “Writing” seems like an ambitious and complicated aspiration.
Do I have anything important to say? Who am I to ask people to listen to my words? Who’s going to care about my characters’ trivial adventures when the whole world is [gestures vaguely] like this?!
It’s important to remember that most people don’t have big, grand adventures every day. Or often.
Even if your characters are getting into dramatic scrapes in worlds we’ll never visit, the moments when your readers connect with them, will be the ones we recognize from this life: the moments of connection; the flash of nostalgia; the smell of a long-lost comfort food.
If you want to connect with readers, give them tiny, everyday experiences they can relate to. The more specific, the better.
Stand The Test of Time
Jamaica Kincaid’s 1978 short story “Girl”, is a list of advice on how to be a woman. But not just any woman.
Through the details Kincaid choses, the reader is invited to make assumptions about who is speaking–from their gender to their age, to the geographical location:
“Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap…This is how you iron your father’s khaki shirt so that it doesn’t have a crease…this is how you grow okra–far from the house because okra tree harbors red ants…”
But it’s not just a list of instructions. They, along with the occasional editorial comment, add up to a larger story in which the older woman imparts warnings and advice and leaves the reader with questions: Does the speaker want the ‘girl’ to be the kind of ‘good girl’ who just does what people tell her? What exactly does the last line of the story mean?
It’s a short pieces that ignores all the ‘rules’ about story structure, and yet people are still sharing it, 43 years later.
What We Notice
I believe “Girl”’s lasting popularity has a lot to do with the specificity of the details in this story. They are what make it stand out. They are what root it in a particular place and a particular voice.
So don’t feel you need to aim to create something grandiose, pregnant with “capital-M-Meaning’.
Just focus on telling a story that feels like it’s happening somewhere specific, with moments your readers can enter.
And you do that by focusing on the small, everyday, universal details:
The smell of the tea roses on the bush by the bench where you sat with someone you loved;
The slow shuffle down a hospital corridor, repeated so often, you’ve memorized the posters on the wall: “Join the Rock Choir: Thursday evenings in the parish hall” “We buy second-hand mobility devices–call for a quote”;
The texture of the sand on the beach, where the wind off the ocean whips away your tears before you have to explain them to anyone…
Don’t worry about what your ‘point’ is; what grand lesson readers must draw from your writing.
Focus on the tiny moments, the delicate sensations, that make up a life, and the story will emerge.
You’re a writer.
Write first.
Figure out what you’re trying to say, in the process.
Keep writing,
Julie
P. S. Need more practice turning everyday moments into key scenes in your stories? Consider the StoryAWeek newsletter: 52 weekly lessons and writing prompts.Find out more.
To Do Now
It’s nto too late: join us in StoryADay November. Sign up here
Write with us this month, even if–especially if–it means you risk falling flat on your face….
Have you thought about joining the StoryADay Challenge but were too worried that you’d make a fool of yourself if you tried?
What if your writing is bad?
What if you can’t write every day?
What if you don’t finish your stories?
What’s the point?
What if you fail?
What is the point in setting yourself up for so many opportunities to fail?
OK, let’s dig in.
1 – Let it be bad
I’m not saying you should aim to write terrible stories, but what I have learned, in 15+ years of taking on this challenge is this: a bad writing day has yet to kill me.
Don’t attempt to edit or polish what you write, the day you write it. Let it be ‘finished’, not ‘polished’.
The key is to show up even when you don’t want to. Sometimes that will result in a bad writing day. Sometimes it’ll result in a good writing day. And there’s really no way to know what kind of writing day you’re about to have. So show up.
Promise me that you won’t show your writing to anyone during the challenge. This allows you the freedom to write whatever comes. We must allow for the possibility that our writing will be imperfect, if we’re ever to get to a point where we write something halfway decent.
Success Secret: Use software like IAWriter or CalmlyWriter.com/online in ‘focus’ mode, which will ‘grey-out’ everything but the paragraph/sentence you are working on, so you’re not as tempted to edit as you go. Alternative: try dictating your story into your phone or a text-to-speech software (Google Docs has one and your phone’s Notes app probably does, too).
2 – Make Your Own Rules
I say ‘StoryADay’ – and if you can swing it, it will absolutely bust through all the lies you are telling yourself about how much/often you are able to come up with an idea, and reduce it to practice.
But…
I long ago discovered that I hate writing every day during this challenge.
Seriously. I always take a day off every week during the challenge. Because otherwise I’m miserable. I made it a personal rule (I take Sundays off).
Some years I have encouraged people to rewrite their own rules after every 7 days of writing, to take into account what they have learned.
Make rules that will push you to write more than you would have otherwise. Make rules about what ‘every day’ looks like; about what ‘a story’ is; about what ‘finished’ means; and about how often you’re allowed to change the rules during the challenge (I do recommend that you only allow rules tweaks at the end of each week, or every other week…)
And if you are a person for whom streaks are extremely motivating, take that into consideration too. Commit to writing a story every day, even if some days that means you’re writing a 6 word story or 6000 words of stream-of-consciousness experimental babble.
Success Secret: Don’t go it alone. Come over to the blog each day and check in with the StoryADay community, in the blog comments, to let us know how it’s going.
3 – Practice, Don’t Chase Perfection
I always recommend trying to put some kind of ending on your story every day. It feels good. I trains your brain to push through the messy middle and not just chase the next shiny idea.
But that doesn’t mean the story needs to be complete or polished. There may be parts that don’t make sense, or that can be expanded, or where you have written “[history’s most romantic kiss goes here but I don’t feel like writing that today]”.
But do Future-You a favor and put some kind of ending on the story while it’s still ‘hot’, and you still have a sense of what you want it to be about.
(I come back to StoryADay Challenge drafts all the time when I’m looking for my next short story to polish and send out into the world. It really helps when there’s a substantial story there, no matter how imperfect!)
Success Secret: Use the energy of the community to keep you going, when the novelty has worn off. Come to the blog every day and comment on how your challenge is going, and cheer on the other people who are participating. Humans are social creatures (yes, even the introverts) and we’re not meant to do big things alone. So don’t try! Join us.
4 – 13 Reasons to Try
I’m asking you to write fast, messy drafts and move on every day. Why bother?
It proves to your inner editor that you can write whether or not you’re inspired when you sit down
It proves to you that you can write today, even if you felt like the world’s worst writer, yesterday
It makes you more decisive (in your everyday life as well as your writing). Writing is all about stage-managing every choice in your fictional world and for your characters. You have to get good at making decisions, and quickly!
It allows you to try out voice, personas, genres, forms and random ideas that you could never justify the time for, if every idea had to turn into a finished product. Sometimes these experimental wanderings reveal a new voice or genre that you can happily spend years with, after the challenge (it happens!).
It reminds you that you are a writer, that you have some aptitude with words, and that you deserve to make time in your life for writing.
It reminds you of how it feels to be a writer (who is writing).
It makes you think deeply about issues and people. This means you are more compassionate and creative when it comes to problem-solving in the rest of your life.
You are easier to live with when you take some time to do the thing that makes you feel most like you. (Trust me. My husband just came home from his office and commented on how happy I seem, today. Guess what I’ve been doing this afternoon? Yup, writing!)
It gets you off social media, and gives you space to decide where your attention goes, today.
It allows you to do some ‘deep work’, which changes the way your brain works, creating more space for brilliance.
It changes the way time flows for you. An hour spent writing in your story world feels very different from an hour spent scrolling short videos on random topics.
People love it when they hear you’re a writer (When new people meet me and my husband, what are they more excited about: the fact that he designed two drugs that are on the market and making people more healthy, or that I’m a writer? It’s ok, he’s not bitter…). It doesn’t matter if you have a best-selling book or if you’re ‘just a writer’. It inspires people to think about what they could be doing, if they would just let themselves…
You’ll regret it if you put it off, any longer. We don’t have an infinite amount of time in this existence. Let’s have some fun with what we have!
Success Secret: Celebrate every tiny triumph. Opened your laptop? Triumph! Read the prompt? Triumph! Wrote some words? Oh my goodness, you’re heroic. Celebrate every step on the road to a prolific writing habit with a literal pat on your own back, a dance party in the kitchen, or anything else that makes you smile and triggers the reward-circuits in your brain. Do it immediately and often, and create those reward-pathways that make your brain whisper: hey, isn’t it time to get back to your writing?
5 – What if you don’t even try?
Failure is how we learn.
If you can’t fail, you can’t get better, and you’ll spend your whole life envious of people who seem ‘luckier’ than you.
If you can’t face failing, you’re going to be stuck–and very sad–for the rest of your life.
Failures provide useful data:
You might think that you love writing at midnight only to discover that your 52-year old self cannot work the way your 25-year old self did. Good data. Now you can work on finding a time that does work. Why not start experimenting, tomorrow?
You might think you love writing romance only to discover that you there’s a dark-thriller writer inside, longing to break free and slash things.
You might think that you can write 5,000 words every day because you did that one time, in a caffeine-fueled deadline-driven binge. Discovering that you can ‘only’ manage 300 words in a single session before your brain turns off, is useful, and allows you to schedule three 20-minute sessions tomorrow and be delighted by your 900 word story, instead of being disappointed you ‘only’ wrote a flash fiction piece.
Success Secret: Treat everything as an experiment.
So grab your lab coat from the coat rack, put on your safety specs, and join me in the Creativity Lab, for StoryADay November.
Adventure beckons.
Discoveries await.
Join us!
Keep writing,
Julie
To Do Now
Decide now, that you’ll join us in StoryADay November. Sign up here
Leave a comment below, confessing your remaining fears (and let me reassure you)
And I’ll see you in the comments, next month!
P. S. Want more support, including daily writing sprints, monthly discussions, workshops, Critique Week and more? Consider joining us in the StoryADay Superstars.Find out more…
You are not a machine. Start living like a human, again.
Lately I’ve been binge-watching televisions series that I’ve watched before. And those shows are a, sci-fi and b, romance. And I’m not sorry.
And I don’t think you should be, either.
Whether you are taking time to write or to consume fiction or art or music…you are building a stronger, more resourceful and more resilient human–and how can that ever be anything but a good thing?
Time to Create
It’s October, and I bet you’ve noticed how busy the end of the year becomes. So much so that it can be hard to find time for creative activities that feed your soul…like your writing.
My invitation to you is to take some time today, to plan islands of calm, to make space for creation, over the next couple of months.
My ‘rules’ for StoryADay are that you attempt to start and finish a story each day that you write, during the challenge.
But I do encourage you to define what ‘each day’ means, for you.
Writing a new story every single day of the month is tough. And it might be more than you need, to boost your creativity and to get you excited about writing again.
Set your own rules
Want to write three days a week? Five days? One? Great! Make that a rule.
Then come to the site, pick a prompt from that week, that sparks your interest, and commit to finishing what you start that day, even if it’s bad, sketchy, has massive gaps, or feels like nonsense.
Most importantly, come back on the next day that you designated, and write a new story.
The point is to keep going, even if you’re disappointed in (or excited about) the previous story.
Build a stack of sketches, drafts, imperfect and incomplete stories, that you can draw on throughout the year, any time you want to write.
Improve Your Chances of Having a Good Writing Day
The only way to feel successful at this writing gig is to prove to yourself that all is NOT lost, if you had a bad writing day last time you sat down to write.
The more you write, the more you’ll discover how little relation there is between our effort and the quality of the output. Some days writing is easy and brilliant, some days you work really hard and hate what you wrote.
Since we can’t predict how our writing day will go, the key is to keep writing anyway.
More writing days is the ONLY way to guarantee more good writing days.
To Do Now
Decide now, that you’ll join us in StoryADay November. Sign up here
P. S. Want more support, including daily writing sprints, monthly discussions, workshops, Critique Week and more? Consider joining us in the StoryADay Superstars.Find out more…
Find out more about the StoryADay
Superstars
The only qualification to be a ‘Superstar” is a desire to write and support your fellow writers.
A supportive group of committed writers, who meet virtually, support each other’s efforts, and inspire each other.
