Hi, I'm Julie Duffy, founder & director of StoryADay. Every year since 2010 I've challenged writers like you to prove to themselves that they can write more (and better) than they think, during the StoryADay May challenge. During the rest of the year, StoryADay supports you with the StoryAWeek newsletter (writing lessons & prompts), a popular podcast, blog posts, mini-challenges, courses, and a members' community. StoryADay May has become a fixture on the writing calendar, and the lively community is one of Writer's Digest's 101 Best Websites for Writers. Join me for info, workshops, challenges & courses, and of course, the StoryAWeek newsletter.
Make A Plan
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To ease eye strain, experts recommend that every 20 minutes we focus our eyes on something further away than our screens–ideally at least 20ft away– for at least 20 seconds. As a trained historian, I feel the same way about the news: current events are thisclose. It wouldn’t hurt us to make a concerted effort to look away, periodically. Fortunately fiction offers the perfect respite. Today, why not step away from this place and time and read some Tolstoy or JM Coetzee, Nnedi Okorafor or Haruki Murakami, Kiran Desai or Ian Rankin. Whether you’re voting in the US elections, or watching from abroad, or couldn’t care less about politics in a country you’re not in, this is a great time to remind yourself of the importance of writing. So make a plan to give yourself a break from current affairs. Here are my suggestions for you (none of these links earn me any money. I just like them all.): Short FictionBest American Short Stories 2024, Lauren Groff (ed) PoetryPoetry Unbound by Pádraig Ó Tuama EssaysBook of Delights by Ross Gay General Non-FictionSlow Productivity by Cal Newport Hidden Potential by Adam Grant Funny StuffThe Hidden Tools of Comedy by Steve Kaplan Comedy Book - How Comedy Conquered Culture--and The Magic That Makes It Work by Jesse David Fox The Diplomat on Netflix (serious, but characters are allowed to be funny in places) Steve Martin: A Documentary In 2 Pieces My Man Jeeves: A Jeeves & Wooster Collection by P. G. Wodehouse Jeeves & Wooster (Hugh Laurie and Steven Fry version) Books About WritingMillion Dollar Outlines by David Farland The Heroine’s Journey by Gail Carriger Intuitive Editing by Tiffany Yates Martin Author in Progress, Therese Walsh (Ed) WatchShrinking (Apple TV), from the people who brought you Ted Lasso, and with a similar sensibility (Content warning: a dead wife/mother killed by a drunk driver.) The Dish - a quiet movie from 2000, starring Sam Neil, about a vital Apollo-era satellite dish in an Australian sheep paddock! What would you recommend, for people looking to appreciate art and take a break from the here and now? Join The Discussion. Keep writing, Julie P. S. If you want to focus on your writing, stay tuned for a super-special offer coming this week, that will help you improve your writing and stick with it over the long term (what?! I know!!) |
Julie Duffy
Hi, I'm Julie Duffy, founder & director of StoryADay. Every year since 2010 I've challenged writers like you to prove to themselves that they can write more (and better) than they think, during the StoryADay May challenge. During the rest of the year, StoryADay supports you with the StoryAWeek newsletter (writing lessons & prompts), a popular podcast, blog posts, mini-challenges, courses, and a members' community. StoryADay May has become a fixture on the writing calendar, and the lively community is one of Writer's Digest's 101 Best Websites for Writers. Join me for info, workshops, challenges & courses, and of course, the StoryAWeek newsletter.
I always thought that an artist’s was the hardest life of all. Its rigor—not always apparent to an outside observer—is that an artist has to navigate forward into the unknown guided only by an internal sense of direction, keep up a set of standards which are imposed entirely from within, meanwhile maintaining faith that the task he has set himself to is worth struggling constantly to achieve. This is all contrary to the notion of bohemian disorder.” Lucian Freud (via Austin Kleon) If you’ve...
On the US Coast Guard’s website, there’s a whole page dedicated to why and when to wear your life jacket. tl;dr: always wear a life jacket if you are on or around water. read this article online I think our writing is exactly like that life-jacket: something not to be ignored and neglected because when we need it, we NEED it. How does a life jacket help? By providing buoyancy if you unexpectedly find yourself in the water. By providing buoyancy if you purposely jump into the water to save...
“Any rejections to celebrate, this month?” I was at my first ever in-real-life writers’ group, and the organizer started the meeting by handing a microphone around the room, and asking people to celebrate what they’d achieved in their writing life, since they last met. Celebrate rejections? What kind of group is this?!, I thought, sure I was in the wrong place. It was the one of many ways I’ve had my expectations upended, on this writing journey. The longer I’ve stayed in the writing...