What Should You Write, Today?

It’s a new year, full of promise…too much promise, perhaps?

A new year can feel like that beautiful notebook someone gave you as a gift: full of potential, unspoiled…too good to mess up with your messy handwriting and half-baked ideas.

(Be honest: How many beautiful blank books do you have on your shelves just waiting for the day when you have a project worthy of their quality?)

The Curse Of Perfectionism

After all the hoopla of New Year and the endless year-end review/goal setting articles flooding the web, the new year can arrive with stakes that feel ridiculously high.

So, if you’re having trouble deciding what to write this week you’re not alone. Many of us struggle with that urge to get things right. First time. This time.

But…the truth is, creativity isn’t about getting things right. It’s about making new things, which usually involves a bit of mess-making.

In Praise of the Mess

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Are You An Overly-Emotional Creative?

I saw a tweet this week, asking ‘am I overly-emotional because I’m a writer, or a writer because I’m overly-emotional?” I have some thoughts…

:LINKS:

This tweet, from author AD Graves, got me thinking (shared with permission) 

A link to this episode: https://storyaday.org/episode235

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Selling Yourself, Selling Your Work

You have to talk about yourself and your work. I’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable. The good news? If you can give yourself permission, you CAN learn to do this.

::LINKS::

3 Day Challenge

Write Your Author Bio & Story Summary Essentials Guide

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196 – Narrative With Dr. Julie Helmrich

Why the story we tell ourselves is the most important we’ll ever tell…and the impact it has on our ability to manage our inner critic, imposter syndrome and to get our work done.

Dr. Julie Helmrich, psychologist and founder of Iron Psych specializes in change fluency and narrative, and is my guest this week, talking about psychological fitness for writers.

Links:

Dr. Helmrich’s site: https://juliehelmrich.com/

Writing prompt: https://storyaday.org/wow-customs

Ready to write today, not “some day”?

What if writing was inevitable?

Does writing have to be a struggle? What if your writing felt inevitable? What impact would that have on your life?

If not, you could find yourself, two weeks from now having written nothing,  unsure of what you want to be writing, struggling to find your rhythm again.

I have mindset change to make you joyfully productive. Read on…

Use Your Powerful Imagination

Imagine, instead, that you had a plan for the first two weeks of October. What would that look like?

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When To Abandon A Short Story

Hand holding a full black plastic trash bag

I gave up on a story today.

It wasn’t a horribly-written story. In fact, it had amused me and a couple of other people who’d read it. My critique group had given me stunningly insightful feedback on what I needed to do to take it from ‘promising’ to ‘good’.

But instead, I put it away and will probably never look at it again.

How Do You Know When It’s Time To Give Up On A Story?

This is a question that comes up surprisingly often among writers.

Wouldn’t you think we’d KNOW if a story was worth working on, or whether it should be consigned to the darkest recesses of our cloud drives, never to be accessed again?

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Writers: Burn Your Business Cards

‘Creative’ is not a noun…Lots of people want to be the noun without doing the verb. They want the job title, not the work.”

Austin Kleon, Keep Going

I read Chapter 3 of Kleon’s latest book this morning and it stopped me in my tracks.

Not because I didn’t know and understand what he said.

I have, after all, made a name for myself as the person who entices writers to actually write during May & September every year.

But because it made me wonder: am I actually doing the verb?

diary writing

What Do You Do All Day?

Continue reading “Writers: Burn Your Business Cards”