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.
The Contrary Writer
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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 been wondering why it’s hard to write: it’s because it’s hard! Creative ContradictionsCreative people don’t like to be told what to do…so we opt for a lifestyle where we have to be self-motivated—on good days and bad—or nothing gets done only to long for someone to tell us exactly what to do, some days. We love novelty and discovery…so we end up living lives that require us to work really hard to figure everything out ourselves. (There’s no template for a best-selling story and if there was, we wouldn’t use it, because that would feel like factory work!) We prize our vivid imaginations…and curse them when they block us from writing the majestic, soaring words we long to our onto the page. Making it Harder...And EasierRecently, writer and literary agent, Kate McKean turned back to her work-in-progress, after letting it sit dormant for a few months. Here’s a list of things that ran through her head as she sat down to work:
(Kate McKean, Agents + Books ) Sound familiar? (McKean has vowed to take her own advice and ‘touch my manuscript every day’, to keep it more ‘alive’ in her mind, going forward, a piece of advice I’m happy to pass on to you here.) 3 Thoughts For The Week AheadKeep goingYou need to write. Writing is hardAnd that’s OK. We chose the path less traveled byThough we may slip on the occasional leaf and trip over the odd hummock of grass, it will, I think, make all the difference. Keep writing, Julie P. S. I am lining up writing prompts from some amazing writers for this year’s StoryADay May. I am so excited to share their names and their prompts with you (soon, my precious!). But for now, make sure you’re signed up to get all the prompts this year, but entering your email address here (yes, even if you’re on this list. I don’t spam everyone with the prompts. Only people who sign up for each year’s challenge) |
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.
How cultivating wonder can keep your creative energy flowing, and why it's so important to nurture it... This time last year I was able to travel to Scotland for a very happy reason — to party with my my parents on their 60th wedding anniversary. The journey didn’t exactly go smoothly, but travel always offers the opportunity to see things in a new light: for example our inexplicably cancelled connecting flight from London to Glasgow turned into an impromptu train journey up the west coast of...
...or: could you use a better inner coach, instead? Remember the Olympic games in Paris, when the media was flooding us with feel-good stories about quirky folks who had dedicated their life to pursuing excellence in one, extremely niche activity…and everyone thought it was cool? Good times. I was struck by the US Gymnastics team’s comments about how much happier they were, now that they had new coaches—coaches who motivated them with praise and love, rather than fear and shame. Oh, and they...
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...