This week’s StoryADay podcast is about loving your writing and sharing the love! Yes, there is stuff about marketing your writing in here, but don’t let that put you off.
CHAPTERS
00:00 StADa321 – Being You
01:09 The One-Story Challenge: Show, Don’t Tell Edition
08:07 Marketing
LINKS:
The One-Story Challenge – Show Don’t Tell Edition:
Elizabeth Wheatley’s Instagram: / elisabethwheatley
Watch on YouTube
Other Help for Improving Your Writing Life
Download the Short Story Framework:
Take the 3-Day Challenge
Sign up for the StoryAWeek Newsletter
Take the I, WRITER Course
Join the Superstars Group
https://storyaday.org/superstars
Coaching with Julie
Transcript
StADa321 – Being You
[00:00:00] Good morning. Good evening. Good afternoon, Julie, from StoryADay here. And I have a couple of things I want to talk to you about this week. Both of which are topics of conversation in the story of the community. And the first one. Is to do with getting the writing done and the craft of doing the writing.
[00:00:21] And I’m going to talk to you about that and the second things a little bit about marketing your work, because there are so many people in this community who’ve been writing for awhile. Now, storyADay May has generated a lot of content. And it’s been running for 15 years and people who started writing before it even started.
[00:00:40] And who’ve been consistently coming back and writing every year. They have generated a lot of material. They’ve learned a lot. They’ve got some great stuff and a lot of them are at the stage of getting their work out into the world. A lot of people who are getting their work out into the world are drawn to this community because of how seriously we take the writing,
[00:00:58] and I suspect the, how seriously we don’t take ourselves, it’s probably a bit of a draw as well. So when talk about both of those things today, but I’m not going to go too long, so let’s get to it.
[00:01:09] First of all. As I record this, it is September and I want to make a plea. If you haven’t jumped into the one story challenge yet this month. It is not too late. We spent the first week drafting a new story for people to play with.
[00:01:27] You could bring a story you’ve already got, and you could review the materials I provided in week one in no time at all. Generate a new story. If you need to, or bring something that you’ve already been working on. This week, we’re getting into the Show, don’t tell lessons of the challenge. So my promise with this one story challenge was that we would take the whole month to work on a single story. You could start from scratch and write the story.
[00:01:54] Then we would delve into this one particular craft technique that gets talked about all the time and drives people crazy. It’s really effective. It’s really powerful, but it’s become one of those. Things that people see and things that people beat you over the head with in critique groups, if you’re not showing you’re telling and what does that even mean?
[00:02:17] So that’s what we’re talking about in the one story challenge. We’re going from the first week where we’ve been drafting stories to. This week where we’re looking at what. Is really meant. By show don’t tell so on Sunday, I’m going to release that lesson. And if you haven’t jumped into the challenge yet, this is perfect timing.
[00:02:38] Jump into the challenge. It is currently priced at $30 for the month and it will never be this price. Again, I tell you that because I’ll be able to get a ton of work into it, and I’m really proud of it. And as I go through this I’m trying to make sure that the information is clear and doled out in a way that is bite size, fun size. And that you get to go through it. While also having a life. While also having obligations and maybe you’ve got kids going back to school.
[00:03:07] Maybe you’ve got parents who need driven to medical appointments. Maybe you’ve got birthday parties coming up, whatever. It is that you have going on in your life. I’ve developed this challenge, which is very unlike story a day may, which is very like, hit the ground running and writes already everyday. This is a kinder, gentler challenge.
[00:03:24] This week we’re going into what really is. Show don’t tell anyway. And we’re doing exercises that will let you take parts of your story and try out different. Versions of show don’t tell because there’s lots of ways that you can apply that advice. Within a story. And there are places where you shouldn’t apply that advice.
[00:03:49] So we’re talking about that this, the first part of that this week, w we’ll try things out, And the opening or in a scene in the middle, I’m not giving away any spoilers, but that’s what we’re going to be working on this week. Every day. There’ll be an exercise that we’ll let you tweak and play with this technique and see. What it can do for your story and what you like about it and what you dislike about it.
[00:04:09] And just be able to talk about it, defend your work in critique groups in a more confident manner. Because it does get overused next week, we will look at more holistically at the whole story. Not next week. The third week of September. We’ll look more holistically at the whole story. And we will look at ways to see. What proportion of showing and telling you should be doing.
[00:04:34] And we are looking at this from a short story perspective. So although these skills. Can. Amplify and be used in a novel quite often, I find that in writing classes, techniques, when they are talked about from a novelist point of view, Don’t miniaturize. So we’re starting. From the point of view of a short story writer and saying, yeah, but how could I do this in a short story? And so that’s really what we’re going to be looking at the third week of September. And everything that we learn in practice can of course be expanded.
[00:05:10] And I think that’s a little easier than trying to shrink things down and take novel techniques. And. And make them work for short fiction. So that’s what’s going on in the one story challenge.
[00:05:30] And the fourth week. Is going to be, when I focus on helping people get the story really finished, but also on one other thing that everyone needs to do, if they’re going to.
[00:05:45] Do this for the long haul. If you are going to make consistent progress, there is a way to, there’s a thing you need to do. At the end of projects. Which will make it more likely that you’re going to keep working without feeling burned out and stay excited about the project that you just finished, actually finished projects.
[00:06:08] All of that can suck. So we’re going to talk about that in week four of the one story challenge as well. So if that sounds good, come over to story. A date.org forward slash one story challenge. Nope, that’s not right. One story, sign up. I’ll put the link in the notes. There’s hyphens in between those words. I will put that into the show notes so that you can come over and join us because you probably have a story already that you can use.
[00:06:34] You can jump in and use these techniques on. So if you weren’t with us for week one, It doesn’t matter, you can review that material, but bring a story that you’ve already started. When I first run a workshop. Like this that’s exactly what I encouraged people to do was to bring a story that was already. In progress.
[00:06:52] So nothing lost. If you haven’t joined us for week one, you’ll still have access to those materials, but you will get the show. Don’t tell lesson this week, then next week you’ll get the. The making a scene. Version of the next step of that. And then the week four will be all about putting the story to bed. And staying enthusiastic about it.
[00:07:13] So hopefully I’ve intrigued you, but not giving away too much because I want you to join us. I don’t want you to just think about it, don’t just think, oh, I’ll learn that later. Because take talk, Time’s moving on. Life keeps passing us by. And if you start today, you’re going to be so much better in two years than if you start in two years.
[00:07:31] So you’re not.
[00:07:35] You’re not standing still.
[00:07:40] I hate to say this. But if you’re not writing. You’re getting rusty. So I put together these challenges to stop you from suffering the feet that I suffered after years of not writing. Creatively. And discovering that it was so hard to get going again. So I put together all these challenges to give you little ways to get back to your rating. Because it makes you happy.
[00:08:02] It makes you more who you are. So anyway, enough about that, you’ve heard me say that stuff before.
[00:08:07] Marketing
[00:08:07] Let’s talk, marketing everyone’s favorite topic. One of the things that’s come up in the StoryADay Superstars group. Is the idea of doing author newsletters. So we’ve been talking a lot about that. And I’ve been talking a lot to a group of entrepreneur, friends of mine about how to. write. Stories in newsletters and emails and marketing materials, that don’t necessarily involve you exposing your entire personal life. Now. We as writers. Have such a leg up on, on people who are just like, I want to be in business and sell a thing. But they understand they need to do marketing.
[00:08:51] They understand they need an email list. They understand that they need to be posting on social media, engaging their followers and having an avatar and all of that stuff. They understand it, but they don’t necessarily have the writing background to make it work. So it’s a harder lesson for me to teach them.
[00:09:08] But if I tell you. That you can write a short story. About. You know your interaction with the barista today. Or about a D something that happened in history or something that you researched for your novel, you get it, you understand, you could put together like a paragraph about that stuff. You could make it compelling.
[00:09:30] You know how to do that. You just need, I think remaindered as everyone does that when people talk about marketing and putting yourself out there, It doesn’t have to be all of you. It has to be the things that you notice. The things that come out of your brain, the things that matter to you. In your fiction writing
[00:09:54] your values come through. Your preoccupations come through. Your passions come through. If you think that, there’s the life is a zero sum game, that comes through in all of the choices that your characters make, all of the outcomes of your novels. If you think that by giving you receive then, and that you expand the pie by giving away tasters, then that comes through in your stories, every choice your characters make your protagonist, probably not your antagonist, but your protagonist is going to make those kinds of choices.
[00:10:33] It’s. It’s really hard to hide your values from your fiction. When we talk about being authentic in your marketing it’s not that you have to share pictures of your family or talk about where you went on vacation or talk about your politics or your religion or any of those things, but by sharing things that you’re interested in things that make you laugh, things that make you, go, huh? You will draw people to you who like the stuff that comes out of your brain?
[00:11:07] And I have a very specific reason I’m talking about this this week because it happened to me this week. I’ve been following a writer on Instagram called Elizabeth Wheatley, for a while. And I’ve been following her largely because she does a very silly thing. She has a character. That she has created called Book Goblin. Who she talks to.
[00:11:32] It’s one of those Instagram things where, the same person is playing both characters, but she talks to Book Goblin, Book Goblin is very obsessive about books. And so she’s used Book Goblin to talk about. Controversies that have come up in her zone, which is a fantasy, I think like romance/fantasy and there’s various. Overlapping genres there. But she’s used conversations with Book Goblin to , talk about control of receipts that have popped up.
[00:11:57] She’s used it to talk about her upcoming releases. She’s used it to talk about why you can’t find her books on Amazon or at least not when they’re first released. So anyway, I follow her largely because I saw a Book Goblin sketch and I thought it was funny. And then I started to like all of the stuff that she was posting. And. Eventually, when she announced a new book, I thought, you know what? I have had so much entertainment from her,
[00:12:26] I think that the brain that created a Book Goblin, probably has some other characters in it that I might enjoy. So even though fantasy is not my first love, and that is definitely what she’s writing. I thought, you know what. I’ll give it a try. So the new book coming out, I thought, you know what, I’ll go back to the first book in the series. I will read I’ll by it.
[00:12:48] I’ll read it. And as aforementioned, she doesn’t Promote her books through Amazon, barnes and noble and things like that. She sells them directly from our website, which I can respect. Okay. So I went over to the website. The first book in the series is $7, which is more than you would charge if you were slavishly. following the advice of all the indie author. experts out there who tell you, the first book in the series should be free or it should be 99 cents.
[00:13:14] And then you should put everything on Kindle unlimited so that people can get it. And. There’s so much advice out there and she’s not following any of that. She’s doing her own thing. And so I was like, oh, cool. That’s interesting. What, $7 for a book, but I might not like, but I’ve already been following her for awhile and consumed $7 worth of, value from what she’s given me.
[00:13:36] So I’ll buy the book. And I’ll I probably won’t like it, but I’ll buy the first book and we’ll see.
[00:13:43] I like the book. My instinct that the person who showed up.
[00:13:49] bravely, boldly and authentically on Instagram and created this book, Goblin Character, my instinct that this person probably had other characters in their brain that I would enjoy hanging out with was absolutely spot on. Now, understand. I am not saying, that you need to start recording videos that you need to have a character that you need to do sketches any of that stuff you absolutely do
[00:14:17] not. What I am seeing. Is that if you can find a way to show us a little bit of your author self. That part of you that is. Uniquely you, The part of you that goes down rabbit holes. Researching the weaving methods of Flanders textile merchants staff in the 14 00s. And spends three days reading about warp and weft and dye stuffs. You can share some of that stuff with us.
[00:14:57] You are not going to appeal to everybody. You are going to appeal to people who are out there. Looking for someone who is that type of quirky they don’t even have to be interested in weaving, but they’re looking, people are scrolling through social media and they’re looking for something that makes them feel a connection.
[00:15:19] And if you show that level of authenticity, show your weird, show your obsessions. Don’t tell us about your kids and your holidays and what you had for lunch unless that is your obsession and you don’t mind sharing those things. But if you collect vintage high heels show us those. It doesn’t really matter if it’s connected to what you’re writing, because if I like your brain. I’m probably going to like your stories.
[00:15:50] So that’s my message today. Is that Authenticity willl draw the right people to you, and it will repel the wrong people away from you. And anyway, I really have to go now because I have to find out what’s going on with Amira and Daindreth, and I need to read my book. Book. BOOK!
[00:16:19] Keep writing.