Day 4 – Let’s Make It Real

Ready to put a ring on it?

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5-Day Challenge / Day 4 / Let's Make It Real

 Welcome back!

It’s no small thing that you’re still here, still working towards creating a powerful tool to support your writing practice…and I salute you!

Over the past few days you have

This manifesto may scare you a little bit, because it’s deeply connected to your values and the things that make you most uniquely you.

You don’t have to live up to this every minute of every day. It’s a guide. It’s guardrails, for when things start to go wrong. A reminder of where you want to be going.

Today’s Task

When your version of the doucment

  • Is a little bit frightening, or a little bit exciting,
  • Makes you a little bit surprised at yourself,
  • Feels a little ambitious.

Then go ahead and sign it.

And date it.

Keep a copy of it (printed or digitally) somewhere you can see it, every day.

A Living Document

This version will serve you for a while.

I’m encouraging you to date it because you may want to come back to this exercise in the future and see how things have changed.

(Probably your values wno’t have changed but you might have more fairy art parents, and a deeper understand of yourself as a writer).

 

Every time you sit down to write a new work, every time you pitch a new idea, every time you continue a piece that you’ve been writing before, take a quick look at your manifesto. And remained yourself of what you are trying to achieve.

  • Not what someone else thinks you should be doing.
  • Not how someone else thinks you should be doing it.
  • What you are trying to achieve.

Not just today. But in your writing life as a whole.

Use the manifesto. Every time you sit down to work.

What’s Next?

So now you have your writer’s manifesto. I want you to come back tomorrow so that we can talk more about exactly how you can use this document. To help you. write more, write better, never work on ideas that don’t matter to you or in a way that doesn’t resonate with you.

So come back tomorrow and we’ll talk about that and we’ll really start to put this into practice in your creative life.

How do you feel about the document you have created? What surprised you about this process? Leave a comment:

Day 3 – What Matters To You?

It’s time to write it down!

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5-Day Challenge / Day 3 / What Matters To You?

Welcome back to this five day challenge.

Over the past couple of days (Day 1 | Day 2), we’ve taken some time to look at your role models in your artistic life, your fairy art parents.

You’ve identified who they are and what you admire about them, and analyzed the commonalities among them.

Today, we start putting together your Writing Manifesto, based on what you’ve learned. This is a guiding document for you as you work on play in your creative space.

And it works from project to project, from scene to scene. (Sometimes I get stuck on a scene and I can’t figure out why I can’t go forward and I realize it’s because it’s not following any of the principles that I’ve set down for myself as an artist.

Working on projects that matter, in a way that aligns with your values and inspiration, makes makes finding your voice so much easier.

It makes everything better.

So let’s get started. Are you ready?

STEP 1

Look at all of the notes you’ve made over the past couple of days about qualities in your fairy art parents that resonate most deeply with you.

(They resonate with you because they matter to you too. And once you’ve got that, I want you to write the words. In my.)

Step 2:

Write

“In my creative life I will be…”

…then list the things that matter to you.

My Example

In my work I will be...

In my work and my life I will be OPENHEARTED, OPTIMISTIC, always looking for the HUMOR, even when it is dark. SKEPTICAL, but not cynical. 

FORGIVING of my work’s flaws. 

PROLIFIC and POSITIVE and always producing the next thing. 

Committed to the CRAFT (read lots, analyze and share, put into practice).

Committed to the COMMUNITY (past, present and future. Part of a lineage.) 

UPLIFTING (this doesn’t mean Pollyanna-is. Remember my mentors.) 

A BELIEVER that ART MATTERS. 

I create worlds I want to live in, and inspire others to do the same (not just on the page).

Julie Duffy

(Watch the video above at the 02:10 mark, for my explanation of how I came up with this)

A Writer’s Manifesto means that, with every project, you can if something’s not working, you can look and see where it’s not aligning with your values, where it’s not aligning with your strategy for your writing life.

The Decision Filter

Mine has become a decision filter for everything I do in my writing.

It’s easier for me to ignore the shiny objects that pop up, and the temptation to think I need something new to work on. One look at my manifesto and I realize maybe I need to make THIS project work the way I want to work!

 

I was really surprised by the clarity it brought me…and lots of other writers have told me the asme thing.

Write Your Manifesto Now

This part is going to take a little more time than what you did on the first couple of days of this challenge. And that’s okay.

Don’t work on it for hours, just 15 minutes or so.

Write down some of these things for yourself and to start creating that document in my writing life,

  • I will…
  • I will be…
  • I will not…
  • I will not be…

it’s not about writing out plans like “I will have a writing contract by the end of the year”. It’s about your approach.

Mine were about being upbeat and optimistic. Yours might be about being sincere and unafraid to write a sad ending.

Really dig for what’s important to you.

When you do, you’ll write the work that only you can write.

The work that people are craving.

You will have the voice that is unique to you.

That is going to make everything that you write better.

Focus on your words.

Sit with it, overnight.

Come back tomorrow, to find out what’s next.

Keep writing,

Julie (signed)

Leave a comment: how did it feel to record your creative values where you can see them?

Day 2 – Let’s Get Together

Day 2! Keep up the good work!

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5-Day Challenge / Day 2 / Let's Get Together

We’re back for day two of this five day challenge, which is going to get you on a path to understanding

  • who you are as a writer, and to
  • keep you on that path.

Anytime you get stuck, anytime you find yourself not making progress, you can come back to the document you are creating this week.

It’s more effective than any other productivity hack like making appointments with yourself or setting deadlines and word count goals.

Those things can all help for awhile. But what matters is the story under the story:

Who are you as a writer, and what is the story you’re telling yourself?

Yesterday, you identified people you admire as creatives and wrote down what you admired.

I encourage you to think about these people as your Fairy Art Parents. These are the people who are guiding the way for you. These are the people you want to be like, but in your own way

Find The Common Threads

Today, I want you to look through that list and find the commonalities between them.

For example, for me, I quickly realized that optimism, humor and open-heartedness were something that all of my people that I admired had in common.

It wasn’t about winning awards or being famous. It was their approach to life and creativity. That was what they had in common that I admired.

So those things belong on my list of what matters to me about writing.

I realized that my fairy art parents also had in common, a commitment to the craft and to turning out work.

I also saw a strong sense among all of my fairy art parents, that art matters. Art is life changing. Art is important. They really felt that creative work can change the world, and I realized that’s something I really believe too.

Your Turn

Go through your fairy art parents and the list of things that you wrote down that you admired about them. Look for those commonalities, circle them, write them out in a separate list. Do whatever makes sense to you to highlight those things…

And then just ponder that for the rest of the day and you’ve completed today’s part of the challenge.

Tomorrow, we’re going to come back. And put all this stuff together. In a way that is going to help you figure out your. Writing Manifesto, your values, and the things that will keep you on the track.

But don’t worry about that yet.

Leave a comment to let us know what you found in common among your Fairy Art Parents.

And I’ll see you back here tomorrow.

Keep writing,

Julie (signed)

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Day 1 – Your Fairy Art Parents

It’s Day 1! Let’s get started!

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5-Day Challenge / Day 1 / Your Fairy Art Parents

   

After we finish these five days, you will have a really strong sense of why you’re writing.

  • What you SHOULD be writing.
  • What your SHOULDN’T be writing.
  • WHO your role models and mentors are
  • How to stay on track and truly BELIEVE that you are a writer and you should be doing this work.

Over the next 5 days we’re going to create your ‘Writer’s Manifesto’, a document that will help you understand why writing matters to you and what you want to bring into the world, through you creativity.

It acts as a decision-filter for the way you work on every scene, every story, every piece.

Two Examples

When I was procrastinating on revisions to a story, I wasn’t sure what was wrong. Then I looked at my Writer’s Manifesto and realized that the cynical little story I had drafted didn’t match my goals for me, as a writer and human.

That realization freed me to let that draft go, and work on something better…which came much more easily.

Likewise, in trying to write a scene in my novel, it kept trending to a tone that didn’t match what I had written as my aspirations for my work. Remembering that allowed me to find a better tone for the scene, which then flowed better, because I believed in it more.

STEP 1 OF YOUR MANIFESTO


We start by figuring out who we admire, as creative — who are our ‘Fairy Art Parents’…

TASK


Write a list of creative people you admire and what attracts you to them.

Don’t spend too long on this.

For example, I wrote:

Amanda Palmer. For her commitment to making the art that only she can make and for finding ways to get paid for it. outwith traditional structures. And for her commitment to openness.

Mary Robinette Kowal science fiction, fantasy author, whose pursuit of the craft of writing and storytelling is detailed and, logical. For her willingness to share that with others and to keep on turning out her own work and building an audience at the same time.

Nick Stevenson for what I call his calculated openheartedness, the way that he communicates with his readers.

Kim Stanley Robinson for his unique style and optimism.

Neil Gaiman for the same things, and for the literary family tree that he grew out of.

Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams for their quirky style, their humor, their big ideas and for the fact that what I get from them. I can only get from them.

WRITE YOUR LIST

  • So write down your list of people who inspire you, writers, artists, creative types.
  • And then write down what it is that each of those people. What you admire about them and the way that they do business.

Today’s is a tiny task, but it lays the foundation for the really important process that we’re going through this week.

We’ll be back tomorrow to take the next step with this list that you’re making today.

Who did you pick as your Fairy Art Parents. Leave a comment and let us know!

Keep writing,

Julie (signed)

P. S. Have a friend who should be going through this challenge with you? Send them a link to sign up at storyaday.org/jan-challenge

Day 0 – Make It Public

A tiny challenge before the challenge…

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A Mini Challenge For Today

if you declare to the world that you’re a writer, your subconscious is going to start supporting you in doing the things that a writer does like: 

  • Making time on your calendar for writing
  • Making notes about character arcs, 
  • Reading more, 
  • Actually starting to write short stories. 

If your biggest challenge is some variation of mindset, motivation, getting the work done, or procrastination, this part is especially important for you.

I want you to open up your email. Find the part where it says ‘settings’. And ’email signature’. And I want you to add an email signature to all of your outgoing personal emails. 

Here’s what it should say,

“[Your name], writer”, 

It’s going to feel weird and scary. 

Maybe you’ll giggle or feel like a fraud. But you’re not. 

You are a writer. By claiming the identity, you will signal to your brain that it’s time to start living up to that.

It’s time to start taking steps that a writer might take. 

Change your email signature Then leave a comment and tell me how you’re feeling.

Keep writing,

Julie (signed)