Building a writing practice you can love
Welcome to the WRITER Code workshop.
Whether you are just coming back to writing after a long time away, or whether you’re already writing and want to build life where your writing is a priority, you’re in the right place.
You can stop worrying about writing or feeling guilty or wondering if you’re really cut out for this writing thing.
Stick with me over the next few days and I’ll introduce you to the WRITER Code, a process for becoming more productive and more creative and enjoying the whole process of writing, not just for a quick burst here and there, but for life.
I’m Julie Duffy, the founder and director of StoryADay and I’ve been helping writers for over 10 years through the StoryADay challenges, my weekly writing prompts, my articles with Writer’s Digest (who love StoryADay so much it’s been one of their 101 Best Websites for Writers for years), through my partner projects with NaNoWriMo and my columns for WriterUnboxed and other writer’s sites online.
I know we’re living in a weird time. And that’s why I felt it was doubly important to get this message out to you, now. This year. This month. That you should be writing. That you deserve to be writing.
And that you don’t have to figure out how to make that happen, alone.
In every crisis we plant the seeds of what comes next. And, yes, I’m incredibly privileged, I’m safe, my family is doing well. But I’ve been humbled over the years, as I’m sure you have, by stories from people enduring incredibly hardships who come out the other side, able to call their struggle a blessing.
In a crisis, the unnecessary gets stripped away.
During this big pause, with most of our previous obligations on hold, There’s an opportunity NOW, to build the future life we want. This is our chance to decide what gets put back into our routine when life resumes a more familiar shape.
How big a part will writing play in your future life?
In olden times (you know, 2 months ago) it’s likely your writing life went something like this:
I know, because this is how it goes for almost everyone who wants to write. There are times when everything flows and times when it crashes to a halt.
The trick is to put systems in place to shorten the gap between the periods of productivity and the periods of sloth.
We do need time away from our work. We do need to live our lives and gather material. There are parts of the writing process that don’t involve adding to our word count.
All of this is important. I struggled for years to balance these pieces.
For the past few years I, and a bunch of people in the StoryADay community — I call them my Superstars and I’ll be telling you more about how you can join us, later — have discovered that we’re writing more, more consistently and better than ever. I’ve finally sat down and codified what we do. And that’s what I’m bringing you, this week.
The WRITER Code is an acronym that contains the process I’ve used to write five novels and hundreds of short stories over the past 10 years, all while raising a family and running a business and, just this weekend, celebrating 25 years of ridiculously happy marriage.
All of those things take time, effort, and attention.
Building a writing practice that will bring you both pleasure in the moment and happiness for the long term, will also take some effort.
And a plan.
The WRITER Code breaks down the steps of becoming a writer into these parts
W - Write
It like the most obvious and simple thing, but there one powerful step I’ll lead you through today, that will make becoming a writer so much easier.
R - Refine
Once you’re writing, you need to refine your process, your practice, the actual writing, your goals, so much work to do here, and I’ll be talking about that throughout the StoryADay challenge, especially as we get into Week 2
I - Improve
Of course, it’s not enough to simply write. At some point you’re going to start feeling dissatisfied with your own writing. It’s massively important at this point not to give up. You’re going to be tempted. Trust me.
But your dissatisfaction with your own writing is a important signpost. It’s telling you what you need to focus on improving next.
And once you’ve recognized that, the next two steps in the WRITER Code will help you push through and stick with all your efforts to write, and not give in to the temptation to quit when it gets hard.
T - Truimph
Celebrating every type of ‘win’ strengthens your whole writing practice.
Whether it’s patting yourself on the back for sitting down at the time you put on your calendar, or buying champagne for everyone when you sign your first contract, it is imperative to celebrate every tiny win in your writing career.
Our brains are incredible places.
Some of us feel emotions physically. And all of us experience events, real or imagined, in the same way. It’s one of the reasons fiction is so effective in creating empathy.
And our brains remember.
Whether you are experiencing good or bad emotions, it tries to protect you from that pain or prod you to repeat that pleasure.
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather feel good. So every time I do something good for my writing, I take the time to celebrate. I build lots of this positive feedback into the StoryADay ecosystem, even before I discovered that it’s a scientifically approved method for building good habits.
But because our emotions are treacherous things, relying only on yourself makes consistency and progress difficult. And that’s why the E of the WRITER Code stands for :
E - Engage
Writing can be a solitary activity but being a writer can’t.
It’s too hard. It’s too different from what normal people do. It’s too easy to be derailed by people who don’t understand how much energy and time goes into making up worlds out of nothing, and creating compelling characters and layers intriguing stories and changing people’s hearts.
We need other people who get it, to lift us up on days when it’s tough, and to celebrate with us on days when it’s going well, and to encourage us when we’re tempted to give up…to tell us it’s ok, that this kind of weird is the best kind of weird, and that our kind of weird saves the world.
I’m going to talk about that throughout this workshop and throughout the StoryADay challenge.
And the final R?
R - Repeat
It’s all very well to write one great story, but to write well, to make progress, to build real satisfaction into your writing process, you have to repeat every step in the writer code.
Think of it as a spiral path. Every time you go through these steps you wide out the path, your abilities grow and you face new versions of old challenges. But this framework will help you tackle every one of them.
So I’ve given you the skeleton of the WRITER Code, and I’m sure all kinds of neurons are firing in your brain now and you’re feeling high and emotional and going ‘yes! I’m going to sign up for StoryADay and I’m going to learn more about the WRITER Code and I’ll write all month and my life is going to be better and I’m going to be happier and I’m never going to look back and woooo!”
And those emotions are great and I want you to hang onto them.
But.
Step 1: Write is, um, hard. Right?
In Lesson 2 I’ll lead you through one way I’ve found to make sure I can always write and finish a story whenever I want.
And after that, I’m going to talk to you about how you keep that momentum going, how you keep your motivation high, and how you come out of all of this with a writing practice you love.
That’s next time. But for today I have two challenges for you, things that will put ‘writer’ at the center of your identity and make it easier for you to jump into your first story or your five hundredth.
James Clear writes in his book “Atomic Habits” that the best way to begin to be successful at something is to claim the identity of the person who does those things.
So if you declare to the world that you are a writer, your subconscious is going to start supporting you in DOING the things a writer does.
If you’re one of the people who recently answered my survey about your biggest challenge with some variation of “mindset” “motivation” “getting the work done” or “procrastination” this part is especially important for you.
And I have two tasks I’d like you to complete before we meet again.
Are you up for a mini-challenge?
OK, step 1: as soon as you’re finished with this lesson I want you to open up your email settings and find the part where it says ‘email signature’. And I want you to add an email signature to all your outgoing personal emails, if you don’t have one there already.
Here’s what it should say.
[Your Name], writer.
That’s it.
It’s going to feel weird and scary and maybe you’re going to giggle or feel like a fraud. But you’re not.
You’re a writer.
By claiming the identity you will signal to your brain that it’s time to start living up to that by taking the steps a writer might take.
And on that note, here’s the second thing I want you to do right after you finish with this lesson.
Download the StoryADay Story Sparks Tracker. Pick the style that works best for you, print it out, fold it up, put it in your pocket, or stick it on the fridge door.
Then spend the next few days collecting five StorySparks a day.
These aren’t story ideas or plots or full-fledged character arcs. They’re just little details that you notice about the world that you might be able to use in a story.
Even if you’re stuck in a studio apartment, 24 hours a day, you can find story sparks.
Just collect the kind of details that flesh out stories. Capture them and don’t worry what you’re going to do with them. Yet.
Five StorySparks a day for a week will give you 35 writerly details you can use in stories during StoryADay May or any time you write.
And more than that, you’ll be walking through the world — no matter how constrained your ability to walk right now — as a writer.
Which will reinforce your own identity as a writer.
Will you add Writer to your email signature and start collecting story sparks?
I’d love it if you’d put a comment down there and let me know that yes, you’re going to do it.
Of course, it’s not the whole story. Just calling yourself a writer doesn’t mean you are writing anything.
And that part is where you’ll encounter your next set of problems.
So next time I’m going to take you through a powerful tool that will help you begin to practice and repeat the W part of the WRITER Code — my favorite quick method for starting a story and getting to the end, any time, every time.
It’s a method that I’ve been using to help people for years. I get delighted emails from writers who’ve used this method to surprise themselves by writing their first complete story in years, or to write a story that flowed easily. Sometimes I hear from from people who’ve used it to write the first draft of a story that’s now being published.
It’s not magic. It takes a little bit of effort, but I’m going to lead you through it step by step in the next part of this workshop, so that you can be a writer who writes, today, not ‘some day’. So that you can be a writer who enjoys the process of writing, instead of second-guessing themselves until they get blocked.
So until then, do me a favor. Take on the two challenges I set you: change your email signature and start collecting StorySparks. Then leave a comment and tell me how it feels.
Oh, and one more thing. You know that friend, the one who’s always saying they want to write? Why not send them a link to this page and invite them to join you on this journey to becoming a writer who writes. A little peer pressure might help you both out!
Then watch your inbox for part 2 of the WRITER Code workshop.
And keep writing.
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