THE WORLD NEEDS YOUR STORIES
This three-part series shows you how to
- Become someone who writes a lot
- Conquer fear and blocks
- Lock in the habits that keep you writing day after day, year after year!
In Part 1 of this series, I talked about why getting all excited about our writing is good…but not enough to actually make it happen. In Part 2, I talked about building the behaviors that support your dreams.
In this section, I want to tell you about the most powerful things I’ve done to make consistent progress in my writing life.
- One is to make my commitments public.
- Another is to go through the writing process with other people.
- The third is to introduce some structure into that process.
It’s why I founded StoryADay May.
It’s the reason I always have stories ready to go whenever I see a call for submissions from a publication or competition that interests me.
It’s a huge part of the reason so many of my StoryADay participants have built writing practices that have allowed them to go on to:
- Write regularly, finishing stories and memoirs (tons of people!)
- Have their first story accepted by a publication (Marta Pelrine-Bacon)
- Have more than 50 stories accepted by publications (Alexis S. Hunter)
- Embark on a project to get 100 rejections this year (Tammy S. Breitweiser)
- Revitalize their love of writing, finish their novel, find an agent, and sign a two-book deal (Sarah Cain)
HOW YOU CAN BUILD YOUR THREE-LEGGED WRITING STOOL
- Find some writing buddies and make your commitment public
- Decide on your minimum ‘tiny win’ for each day
- Set up some prompts in the form of external reminders (from people or devices) or internal actions that will prompt you to write (‘every day after I put my dinner dishes in the dishwasher, I will go upstairs and work on Project X for one hour’)
But remember yesterday, when I said that if things are even a little bit difficult, our brains will find reasons to resist?
Look at that list of tasks I just gave you. Before you can even get to the writing part, you have to (eek!) socialize; make a decision about a ‘win’, and figure out what prompts might work for you, set them in place, etc etc.
WOULD YOU LIKE AN EASIER WAY?
I’ve put together a new, mini-challenge to ease you into the StoryADay lifestyle. It’s the 3 Day Challenge, where I’ll send you prompts, pep-talks and resources to encourage you to write something every day, for three days.
That’s it. Just three days.
What can you achieve in just three days?
1. CONFIDENCE.
I have never met anyone who took one of my challenges who didn’t surprise themselves. Everyone writes something they’re pleased with. Even if it’s just a few sentences in the middle of a first draft. That’s enough to give them the high that comes with using your gifts. It’s often enough to get them hooked on writing again, and put them back in that gleeful place where they are carving out time to write and improve their craft every week, maybe even every day.
Isn’t that where you want to be?
2. COMPLETED STORIES
The 3 Day Challenge encourages you to write three quick short story drafts, all the way from the opening idea to the words ‘the end’. These stories won’t be perfect, but they will remind you that you can get all the way through a story. They will teach you about story shape, pacing, and most importantly, what interests you most.
3. CLUES TO YOUR BEST PRACTICES
I can’t teach you how to write.
Only you can teach yourself what you love to write, when you write best, what materials work best for you.
Taking three days to concentrate on putting your writing first, will teach you a lot about what works for you, what your writing voice sounds like (have you heard it lately?) and, perhaps most importantly, what doesn’t work for you.
This course is all online and you get to go through it at your own pace. That means, you can try writing in the morning on Day 1 and, if you hate it, you can switch it up for Day 2 and write after everyone else has gone to bed. You can try humor one day, and if that makes you uncomfortable, why not try a horror story the next day? TAKE THE 3 DAY CHALLENGE
KEEP WRITING,A WRITING RETREAT AT HOME
Treat this 3 Day Challenge like a mini writing retreat without the need to carve out 36-hours away from your daily life, pay hundreds of dollars in travel and hotel costs, and (shudder) make small talk with strangers.
(Yes, you can interact with other participants in the comments sections, but I promise, there will be no embarrassing ice-breaker activities!)
Imagine: just three days from now you could have a small pile of finished stories, a bunch of new writing tools and the confidence that comes from actually doing the work.
Or you can go on trying to convince yourself that you have to do this alone. That writing is a solitary business. That you don’t need to take a course.
Except, isn’t that what got you here?
Your stories are burning inside you, desperate to find a way into the world.
I know, because I’m just like you.
And I’d love you to spend three days with me, online, at your own pace, discovering how to fit writing into your daily life. It’s a gift that you can give yourself, that will bear fruit for the rest of your life.
Somewhere out there is a reader who needs to hear that they are not alone. You might be the writer that changes their life.
Don’t let your doubts keep you from writing. Your voice matters and the world needs your stories. It sounds hokey, but it’s true.
Interested? Take the 3 Day Challenge today.
Keep writing,
P. S. You’ll be in the first cohort of writers going through this brand-new course, and I’ll be monitoring your progress, and available to answer questions in a way I won’t be in future. I’m not sure when I’ll next make this course available, so don’t wait. Take the 3 Day Challenge now! TAKE THE 3 DAY CHALLENGE