How To Be More Disciplined, As A Writer

In an early scene in the ‘fish out of water story’ TV show Ted Lasso, Ted—an American—is offered a cup of tea by his British host. He sips the tea and promptly spits it out…right into the face of his glamorous new boss.  

“It’s horrible,” he says, shaking his head.

Same, Ted. Same.

I have a cup of tea about once a year, just to make sure I’m not missing something. 

Nope. Still horrible.

What Does “Discipline” Taste Like, To A Writer?

When I ask writers about their biggest challenge ‘time’ is always number one, with ‘focus’ or ‘discipline’ or ‘consistency’ running a close second.

But what does ‘more focused’, ‘more disciplined’ or ‘more consistent’ look, smell, feel, and taste like?

As a Brit, ‘tea’, to me, has a narrow definition. “Tea”=black tea…and I do not like it.

But if we allow ‘tea’ the more expansive definition Americans often use, I can like ‘tea’. There are plenty of herbal infusions that give me actual pleasure.

Define The Terms

The ‘Productivity industry’ has a lot to answer for. 

It has pushed a grim vision of ‘discipline’ that says if you don’t show up every day, and suffer a bit, you’re failing. 

I bought into it.

I started the StoryADay May Challenge because I thought I needed to write every day to ‘be a writer’. I couldn’t make myself do it for more than about 12 days and I thought that accountability and the threat of public shame would fix that.

Confession time

Forgive me writers, for I have failed: I have never once created that unbroken streak of days when I started and finished a story for 31 days in a row. 

Not once in 16 years.

Does that mean I’m not disciplined enough to be a writer? 

I’ve certainly wasted enough time worrying about that, over the years. 

Maybe you have, too. 

They Laughed At Me (in the nicest possible way)

It took other people laughing at me (kindly) to make me notice that there is a certain discipline (stubbornness?) and consistency in:

  • Running an annual challenge for 16 years straight; 
  • Writing five novel drafts; 
  • Writing enough short stories—and sending them to enough markets—that some of them have been published;
  • Leading a writing community for 8 years; 
  • Producing almost 340 podcast episodes and writing almost 2,500 blog posts about this writing journey we’re all on.

I still can’t write fiction every day.

 AND I have learned so much.

 ‘Failing’ my own challenge year after year is a delightful reminder to me that ‘disciplined’, ‘consistent’, or ‘focused’ are never going to look, for me, like creating an unbroken streak of days where I write new words. (Your mileage may vary.)

I need days off. I need time to wander around and breathe in life, without the pressure of having to synthesize those experiences and breathe them out into new words, today

.For me, ‘consistency’ and ‘discipline’ will likely always be lumpy, seasonal, cyclical things. 

Sometimes it looks like generating new words. 

Sometimes it looks like learning new skills

Sometimes it looks like taking two steps backwards as I experiment 

Sometimes, yes, it looks like staring out of the window or going on a long walk.

And it all adds up.

Do This Now

If you keep telling yourself you’re ‘failing’ to be consistent or ‘disciplined’ in your writing, look back over your lifetime and notice the times when you were most productive. 

  • What was working for you, then? (And it’s more than ‘I had more time’. It’s also ‘I had something I was trying to achieve’ or ‘I had someone cheering me on’ or even ‘I was paying for a class so I showed up’)
  • Did you ever need to sit at your desk for 3-4 hours every weekday to produce quality writing? (If not, why would you think that’s what a ‘successful writing life’ looks like, now?)
  • Take a look at your upcoming week and ask ‘what’s the tiniest step I could take to show up for my writing this week?’. Then put that on a piece of paper and carry it around with you. Do it. Celebrate with a dance party in the privacy of your bedroom (I suggest listening to music you loved as a teenager). Then come back and do it again. 

Practice joy in your writing life enough, and you’ll start to crave it. 

Consistency and discipline become issues you never have to worry about, because you’re chasing something better.

LEAVE A COMMENT: What has helped you feel more successful/joyful in your writing lately? What is an essential part of your practice? What’s negotiable?

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Why Bother Writing…

…in an age of AI?

Watch The Video Edition

I’m already starting to think about next year’s StoryADay May and, here in this age of AI, I was struck with the awful thought: why bother?

AI means you can generate 31 short story writing prompts in 90 seconds (5 minutes if you’re willing to wait for more polished prompts with a theme and multiple repetition. How do I know this? I asked it.)

It takes me roughly 3 months of (admittedly part-time) work to research guest authors, reach out to them, assemble their responses, curate and cue them up, create pretty images, summaries, and queue everything up.

But the point is that you get a human-created journey through a month of story writing. You get a peek inside the head of other writers. And you get to have the experience, along with other writers in the community.

It’s not for everyone. But I’ll keep doing it for you.

And also for me.

Because the work is not just about the prompts. It’s never just about the output, the end product.

Writing Changes Us

The struggle, the striving, the research, the craft, the failure, the resilience, the patience, the growth…It’s personal development at its finest.

How To Bother, in an age of AI

I’ve been preaching this for a decade and a half (and now I have the experience of leading a group for 8 years to back up my hypothesis). 

The most important foundation you can give your writing is to:

  1. Define success

If you don’t know what success means for you, how are you ever going to know if you’ve attained it.

Not someone else’s vision of success.

Yours.

And that means asking some questions about why you’re doing this.

  • Are you doing it to be published?
  • Are you trying to support yourself from your fiction writing?
  • Are you building a daily practice for self-development?
  • Are you trying to improve a particular craft skill?
  • Are you keeping a promise you made to yourself as a child?
  • Are you setting an example for a younger person in your life who needs to see what ‘self-respect’ looks like?

This is Step One. 

Without it, you will never be—or feel—successful, no matter what external measures of success you hit.

If you skip this step-–or if you think this remains static forever—it’s almost impossible to be productive, motivated, or fulfilled by writing. If you’re simply on a treadmill, turning out words, you’ll be consumed by the idea that it’s never enough—that you’re not enough.

Do This Now

If you haven’t taken the time to examine your definition of success lately—and perhaps to notice how it has changed since you were 14, 25, 35, 45—put down your pen, push away the keyboard, and spend the next week just noodling on these questions:

  • What does success look like for you, in the next few years?
  • In order to get there, what milestones would you have to hit, if any?
  • What would you have to do regularly, to feel successful when you look back at your month?
  • What does that look like, for today?

If you do this exercise right, you’ll notice that it becomes easier to show up for your writing and enjoy yourself.

Without taking this step, your internal ‘motivation process’ can look like this:

“Today I have to work on finishing the novel so that I can get it out into the world and quit my job and prove to [that friend/family member] that I haven’t been wasting my time all these years.” [Sighs. Drags self to coalface….]

Not only is that demotivating since your inner critic is bound to kick in and try to keep you safe by pointing out how hard it is to do what you’ve outlined. It’s also doomed to fail, as a path to success today, because it’s impossible to figure out what first step to take today. 

And so it’s impossible to know when you’ve finished your work for the day. Without a clear definition of what success looks like to you, you’re likely to do nothing, or to keep working until you’re so exhausted you have to stop. Neither of which makes you feel successful, or advance you towards external success. 

So you pick up your phone and doomscroll and go to bed promising to do twice as much tomorrow, still without a clear idea of what that looks like.

No More Doomscrolling

If you have done the work to figure out what ‘success’ looks like for you—for now—your internal motivational conversation goes more like one of this:

“I know I want to finish this novel, because I want to prove to myself that I can write something I’m proud of. I need to finish the scene where the protagonist confronts the bad guy, but I’m having trouble doing it. Maybe I need to back up and do some character exercises (from that course/book I bought and never finished) to figure out the characters’ real motivations. OK, that won’t add to the manuscript’s word count today, but I’ll learn more about the characters, which might free me up to write the actual scene tomorrow. So today’s task is: find that character exercise I remember liking in that course I took, and go through it slowly. When I’ve done that I’ll summarise my thoughts, for next time, then my reward will be to take a walk outside.”

(Notice the reward. That’s a key part of building a satisfying practice and feeling successful in it.)

Picture The Day

Imagine yourself at the end of a day when you’ve ground through 2,000 words or four scenes, because “that’s what successful writers do”, and then collapsed on the couch with a whisky, ‘to recover’. 

No imagine yourself at the end of a day when you took a small concrete step that aligns with your goals and your current energy, and that you can put a checkmark next to as ‘accomplished today’. You bound out of your chair with energy left over to hang with the kids or the spouse, knowing that you’ll be back in a day or two to tackle the next task.

Doesn’t that feel like a successful writing life, regardless of external rewards or judgment?

So should you bother writing, in an age of AI, even if the external rewards you once hoped for aren’t guaranteed?

I, for one, say “yes”.

Need help tracking your successes? Get the Planning & Tracking Bundle

LINKS

LINKS

StoryADay Challenge archive: https://storyaday.org/writing-prompt-archive/

SWAGr monthly accountability posts: https://storyaday.org/category/swagr

‘Define Success’ article: https://storyaday.org/how-to-become-a-highly-successful-writer/

The Dream of being a Writer, article: https://storyaday.org/the-dream/

Permission to Write article (and certificate): https://storyaday.org/write-more-permission-to-write/

The I, WRITER Framework for a Successful Productive Writing Life, article: https://storyaday.org/i-writer-framework/

Planning & Tracking Worksheets Bundle: https://storyaday.kit.com/products/story-a-day-planning-tracking-worksheets

StoryADay Superstars group: https://storyaday.org/superstars

Book a 1:1 Writing Strategy Session with Julie: https://members.storyaday.org/creative-coaching

What’s Next?

Making progress in your writing life

If you took part in the StoryADay May Challenge you might be finding yourself confused. 

You wrote so much in May and now? Now, it’s hard to get anything done.

You’re Progressing, Not Graduating

As a creative person, there is never a moment that you can point to and say, “That’s it. I’m finished.” We will always strive to be better…and so it’s important to notice the milestones along the way.

Don’t beat yourself up for losing momentum after the challenge (or any big writing push).

It’s possible you needed a break.

But it’s also possible you miss the structure of the challenge.

So, in case Option B applies to you, here’s my suggestion for the next four weeks, so that you can feel yourself making consistent progress without burning out.

Read: Your Four-Week Writing Momentum/Rescue Plan

It takes through a four week plan to:

  • Notice what you achieved
  • Set a short-term goal
  • Work on a specific craft skill
  • Finalize a draft of a single story

Each week I encourage you to focus on one thing (while, obviously, doing many other things at the same time) so that you can feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of a defined period (in this case, the next four weeks).

Give it a try then come back and tell me how it went.

The I, WRITER Framework for a productive, successful, fulfilling writing life

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.

Take Your Time. It’s Fine.

This morning I found myself writing (in pen, on paper) about the value of going slowly.

  • Influencers and ‘gurus’ are all shouting about how you can hustle and grind and be an overnight success.
  • GLP-1 ads (for non-medical reasons) promise quick weight loss.
  • AI is about how we (and the companies that own us) can be more ‘productive’ in less time.
  • Media articles celebrate the overnight sucess.

And what do we actually value? What are we actually impressed with? Enthralled by?

  • Cathedrals that took generations to build
  • Olympians who have been working towards ‘this moment’ since they were adorable tots, wobbling, Bambi-like, on frozen surfaces
  • Well-crafted novels that took months—or years—to write
  • Businesses that have endured for over 100 years
  • Fossils

Maybe it’s OK for you to take your time, today.

Too Many Voices

For when you want to Do All The Things…

Are you sick of people telling you what you should be doing? (I know I am!)

There are so many things a writer ‘could’ be doing (social media, courses, mentorships, retreats, conferences, residencies…)

And only one thing a writer must do: write.

It’s easy to be distracted by the former, to the detriment of the latter.

So Much Noise

After the New Year lull, we’re hading into a season where it seems everyone is inviting you to attend a writers’ conference, a course, a retreat, a summit…and you’re going to have to tune most of it out—along with the FOMO—if you want to do any writing.

In my experience, the best way to stay focused and keep making progress is to limit your options: find one group where you belong, one teacher or annual conference that works for you, and then tune out the rest…for now.

Signal vs Noise

How do you identify the places that work for you?

There’s some trial and error, but here are some questions you can use while you’re evaluating different options:

  • Does showing up for these events make me more productive or just aspire to be more productive?
  • Do I come away from these events exhausted or exhilarated?
  • Does belonging to this group fill me with a restless energy to create, or do I feel like showing up at the event/class/conference ticks the creativity box and I can do nothing until the next scheduled event?
  • Am I inspired to write more, by the people around me?
  • Do I often learn something new that I can put into practice in my own writing right now, or is the teaching at the wrong level/stage for me?

If the answers to these questions are ‘yes’, stick with those groups, conferences or teachers until you start to answer ‘no’ more often than not.

The Most Valuable Question

That last question (“Do I learn something that I can put into practice in my writing right now”) is the really important one.

You might like the people or the teacher, but find that being with them doesn’t make you more productive. This can happen if:

  • They’re operating at a different level of ambition than yours
  • They’re working at a different skill level from yours (either far behind where you are or so far ahead that it’s not inspiring, it’s discouraging.)

It’s Not A Race

There’s so much to learn…but only so much you need to know right now.

Find the spaces that solve the challenges you are facing today.

Make progress on the challenges that face you today. Pause to celebrate and really FEEL that progress.

The rest can wait.

The Superstars Advantage
The fastest way to get better at writing stories is to write more stories — and reflect on them with other writers. That’s what the StoryADay Superstars group was built for.
You could do it alone, but why make it harder than it needs to be?
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