May 14, 2025 • 10 mins
(and yes, episode four comes from Day 5. You didn't miss anything. I just don't do these every day)
This update from the StoryADay challenge comes on Day 5, but works for you any time you're trying to write.
Join the challenge: https://storyaday.org
00:00 Introduction to StoryADay Challenge
00:15 Taking a Break: The Importance of Rest
01:07 Dealing with Prompts: Inspiration and Flexibility
02:14 Community Insights: Diverse Perspectives on Prompts
05:10 Personal Reflections: Knitting and Writing
06:57 The Value of Persistence and Experimentation
08:02 dig deep into the ideas that come from the writing prompts
10:07 Encouragement and Community Engagement
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, it's Julie from Story Dayhere, and I am out today talking to
you about the StoryADay challenge.
how's it going?
It's day five here as I'mrecording this and, I will confess.
It's not really a secret.
I take Sunday off.
I've discovered over the yearsthat I get really, agitated.
(00:22):
If I feel like I have to do somethingevery single day, I'll just start
looking for ways to avoid it.
So since I started thischallenge, it's my challenge.
I get to make the rules.
You get to make your rules.
I have always, taken Sundays off andso I, I took Sunday off yesterday and
every year I think I'm not gonna do it.
And every year I get toSunday and I'm like, Ugh.
I want Sunday off.
(00:43):
So I took Sunday off and it was great.
I had a lovely day doing things thatwere not related to writing and taking in
ideas, which I think is really important.
So when I came back, yesterday's prompt,I will save 'cause I really like it is one
from Mary Robinette Kowal and I will saveit and I'll maybe use it on a day when
(01:04):
I'm not feeling inspired by another one.
Maybe I'll combine it with another one.
I kinda combined it with today's,actually, but I, that's one of the
things I want to talk to you abouttoday, and that is the prompts.
you're not always gonna beinspired by the prompts.
Very first day of the challenge, I gotan email from somebody or a comment from
(01:26):
somebody saying, Bleurgh this is a bust.
Maybe tomorrow, Let me tell you something,that person has never showed up again.
I'm betting that person thistime next year won't have showed
up for their writing very much.
And I'm betting that this time nextyear when they see anything about
(01:47):
StoryADay May, they're gonna go, Ugh.
Those challenges are rubbish.
They don't do anything.
They don't help.
I tried that, and that personis gonna feel, they're not gonna
have, they're not going to havestood in one place for a year.
They're gonna have fallen behind.
They're going to havemore guilt, more shame.
More frustration with themselvesfor not writing, and they're gonna
(02:10):
blame it on the fact that theydidn't like the prompt on day one.
Whereas this morning in the StoryADaySuperstars, group where the story
of a superstars chat, where we gettogether and write together, there were
a bunch of people working on today'sprompt, which is from RSA Garcia,
and it's about a hibiscus flower.
(02:30):
Now, not everybody in the group isinterested in flowers and they were quite
quick to say so, . but they thought aboutthe word, the word that, RSA Garcia had
given us was to do with hibiscus flowers.
And so one person was thinking aboutthe fact that the word hibiscus
has lots of great stuff in it.
(02:50):
It has "hhhh", you know.
And it has "ssssss" and it has 'bbbbb"!.
And you could do all kinds of stuffwith that, especially if you're writing
in a secondary world, fantasy world.
You can take a word that's in theprompt and turn it into something that
is means something else in your world.
Someone else in the groupis a horticulturist.
Horticulturalist, a plant person, andtheir first thought about hibiscus was
(03:13):
how it doesn't grow well, where they live.
And so their first thought went tothe pests that infest hibiscus plants.
Someone else in the group started thinkingabout the fact that you can forage.
Now, I don't recommend doing this becauseI'm not an expert in foraging, and don't
poison yourself, but you can forage.
hibiscus flowers and pods, andyou can cook them, apparently
(03:35):
they're quite like okra.
you wanna make sure you've got theright variety, of course, when we
had a discussion about that too,but then a couple of people in
the group started writing aboutthings that had, tea in them.
they were, inspired by that discussion.
So you don't have to gowith the prompt itself.
You don't have to go with thefirst thing that comes to mind.
I started mine thinking about the factthat the hibiscus blooms for one day,
(03:59):
and then in the prompt it said there arehybrids, there are varieties that have
been, bred that bloom for three days.
So I started thinking about the fact that.
you have something that's perfectand yet we have to tinker.
So that's what my story became about.
Somebody else in the group was talkingabout the fact that, you can, every
(04:24):
culture seems to have this idea ofsymbols for things that are perfect.
Examples of beauty or symbols that are.
About femininity or you couldtake that even further, divinity,
whatever you want to talk about.
so those are some of the thingsthat we were thinking about
today in the writing group.
If you haven't beenwriting, do what I did.
(04:47):
Just come back to it.
Give yourself the day off.
Pay attention during the challenge.
If you are not loving writing every day,then switch up the rules for next week.
If you are like, I'm doing writingreally sketchy first drafts, just
do that, this is, your challenge.
But the point is that you are showingup for your writing every day.
(05:10):
While I was waiting for my story ideato come this morning, I was knitting and
I was trying a new technique, not a newtechnique, a technique I've done before.
So something I felt like I should knowhow to do, and yet I made some mistakes.
And sometimes I have a fairly hightolerance for just blundering on
and making mistakes and learningfrom making those mistakes.
(05:31):
And that's fine because this piecethat I'm knitting is just for me.
I'm not trying to sell it to anyone.
It's for me.
I'm enjoying the process of making it.
When it's finished, I willenjoy the process of wearing it.
It will be a product thatI will enjoy wearing.
And I do have, as I say, ahigh tolerance for looking at.
Mistakes that I've made in a patternand going, oh yeah, I remember where
I was when I did that, or, I knowwhy, I know what I learned from that.
(05:54):
So I'm, pretty okay with making mistakesin my work and I'm kind of the same in
my writing as well, but I'm not tryingto sell it to anyone at, none of these
pieces are getting sent out next week.
They will all get looked atand if I need to make them
for an audience, the same way as if Iwas making a sweater for someone else,
(06:16):
I would have to make it right for them.
If I was trying to make these storiesright, then I would go to somebody who
knows how to do this and learn from them.
So in the case of my knitting, I wentto the designer, he has a YouTube,
Steven West, I have a, he has a YouTubechannel, and I looked up his instructions
on how to do this stitch, which Ithought I knew how to do, and I was
making assumptions, and I did it wrong.
(06:38):
And, I was okay with the, what Iactually ended up with was something
novel, so I was okay with it.
The mistakes I made, I'm leavingin and I'm just starting the
next section doing it right.
once I got going on the next section,I really had to keep going for
quite a long time until I got thetechnique down longer than I expected.
And this is something that Ithought really, reminded me a
(07:01):
story a day, because you can write.
But if you want to write well, if youwant to write fluidly, if you want to
write prolifically, if you want to writecreatively, if you want to write in
different genres, if you want to honeyour voice, you have to keep at it.
You have to keep at it for a while, and
(07:23):
you have to try things.
You have to make it real, not somethingyou can do once, something you can do
every day, and you don't have to do itevery day for the rest of your life.
You don't even have to do itevery day during this challenge.
But committing and giving yourselfthe gift of some focused time to
practice the thing that you wantto practice is really useful.
(07:45):
Makes it a lot easier when you come backto it, but every time you come back to it,
you have to pay attention to the details.
Are you actually writing thingsthe way you want to, or are you
making assumptions about whatreaders will hear from your words?
Like I was making assumptions abouthow this stitch should be knitted.
So that's what I'm thinkingabout with my writing today.
It is okay to take a day off.
(08:09):
It's okay to not like the prompt.
It's okay to not use the prompts, butif you do use the prompts, dig deep.
The first idea that you come upwith will never be your best idea.
Keep digging.
It might be your best idea.
I hate to say, I hate to say things.
I hate to say thingsin absolutes like that.
(08:30):
Maybe your best first idea is your bestidea, but chances are if you keep digging,
you're going to come up with somethingthat surprises you and everyone else.
And once you start writing,the actual writing is where the
creativity is really going to kick in.
My story started being about why wouldsomeone take this perfect blossom
and try and make it more perfect.
(08:51):
Arguably less perfect.
Why would they create a hybrid of it?
My story ended up being aboutworkers' rights [chuckles].
So you never know where things are gonnago until you actually start writing.
You can theorize, you can brainstorm,you can imagine the most perfect story
(09:13):
in the world, but you don't know what'sgonna happen until you start writing.
And if you need to take a day offto recharge and refill and put some
input in so that you get some goodoutput, then go ahead and do that.
But just keep coming back.
Don't be the guy from the first day whosaid, bleurgh!, I didn't like this prompt.
Maybe tomorrow and then never came back.
(09:36):
Be one of the hundreds of otherpeople who come back and keep
trying and let themselves failand let themselves discover what
happens when you make a mess.
Maybe you'll like it, like my knitting,maybe you'll like the mess that you made.
Maybe you'll say, ah, that'swhat I was doing wrong.
Maybe you'll find outsomething about your process.
you're trying to write first thing inthe morning, but you're a night owl
(09:58):
or you're trying to write after lunchand all you wanna do is take a nap.
Ah, that's what I was doing wrong.
You'll never know until you try anduntil you stick with it for a while.
So join us in StoryADayMay and experiment.
Make a mess.
Have fun.
Get into the comments andtell people what you're up to.
If you haven't read thecomments, that story a day yet,
go in and have a look at them.
(10:19):
It's really inspiring seeing all ofthese other people making a mess, having
fun, trying stuff, being courageous,giving it a shot, and just writing.
So keep writing.
Hey, it's Julie from Story Dayhere, and I am out today talking to
you about the StoryADay challenge.
how's it going?
It's day five here as I'mrecording this and, I will confess.
It's not really a secret.
I take Sunday off.
I've discovered over the yearsthat I get really, agitated.
(00:22):
If I feel like I have to do somethingevery single day, I'll just start
looking for ways to avoid it.
So since I started thischallenge, it's my challenge.
I get to make the rules.
You get to make your rules.
I have always, taken Sundays off andso I, I took Sunday off yesterday and
every year I think I'm not gonna do it.
And every year I get toSunday and I'm like, Ugh.
I want Sunday off.
(00:43):
So I took Sunday off and it was great.
I had a lovely day doing things thatwere not related to writing and taking in
ideas, which I think is really important.
So when I came back, yesterday's prompt,I will save 'cause I really like it is one
from Mary Robinette Kowal and I will saveit and I'll maybe use it on a day when
(01:04):
I'm not feeling inspired by another one.
Maybe I'll combine it with another one.
I kinda combined it with today's,actually, but I, that's one of the
things I want to talk to you abouttoday, and that is the prompts.
you're not always gonna beinspired by the prompts.
Very first day of the challenge, I gotan email from somebody or a comment from
(01:26):
somebody saying, Bleurgh this is a bust.
Maybe tomorrow, Let me tell you something,that person has never showed up again.
I'm betting that person thistime next year won't have showed
up for their writing very much.
And I'm betting that this time nextyear when they see anything about
(01:47):
StoryADay May, they're gonna go, Ugh.
Those challenges are rubbish.
They don't do anything.
They don't help.
I tried that, and that personis gonna feel, they're not gonna
have, they're not going to havestood in one place for a year.
They're gonna have fallen behind.
They're going to havemore guilt, more shame.
More frustration with themselvesfor not writing, and they're gonna
(02:10):
blame it on the fact that theydidn't like the prompt on day one.
Whereas this morning in the StoryADaySuperstars, group where the story
of a superstars chat, where we gettogether and write together, there were
a bunch of people working on today'sprompt, which is from RSA Garcia,
and it's about a hibiscus flower.
(02:30):
Now, not everybody in the group isinterested in flowers and they were quite
quick to say so, . but they thought aboutthe word, the word that, RSA Garcia had
given us was to do with hibiscus flowers.
And so one person was thinking aboutthe fact that the word hibiscus
has lots of great stuff in it.
(02:50):
It has "hhhh", you know.
And it has "ssssss" and it has 'bbbbb"!.
And you could do all kinds of stuffwith that, especially if you're writing
in a secondary world, fantasy world.
You can take a word that's in theprompt and turn it into something that
is means something else in your world.
Someone else in the groupis a horticulturist.
Horticulturalist, a plant person, andtheir first thought about hibiscus was
(03:13):
how it doesn't grow well, where they live.
And so their first thought went tothe pests that infest hibiscus plants.
Someone else in the group started thinkingabout the fact that you can forage.
Now, I don't recommend doing this becauseI'm not an expert in foraging, and don't
poison yourself, but you can forage.
hibiscus flowers and pods, andyou can cook them, apparently
(03:35):
they're quite like okra.
you wanna make sure you've got theright variety, of course, when we
had a discussion about that too,but then a couple of people in
the group started writing aboutthings that had, tea in them.
they were, inspired by that discussion.
So you don't have to gowith the prompt itself.
You don't have to go with thefirst thing that comes to mind.
I started mine thinking about the factthat the hibiscus blooms for one day,
(03:59):
and then in the prompt it said there arehybrids, there are varieties that have
been, bred that bloom for three days.
So I started thinking about the fact that.
you have something that's perfectand yet we have to tinker.
So that's what my story became about.
Somebody else in the group was talkingabout the fact that, you can, every
(04:24):
culture seems to have this idea ofsymbols for things that are perfect.
Examples of beauty or symbols that are.
About femininity or you couldtake that even further, divinity,
whatever you want to talk about.
so those are some of the thingsthat we were thinking about
today in the writing group.
If you haven't beenwriting, do what I did.
(04:47):
Just come back to it.
Give yourself the day off.
Pay attention during the challenge.
If you are not loving writing every day,then switch up the rules for next week.
If you are like, I'm doing writingreally sketchy first drafts, just
do that, this is, your challenge.
But the point is that you are showingup for your writing every day.
(05:10):
While I was waiting for my story ideato come this morning, I was knitting and
I was trying a new technique, not a newtechnique, a technique I've done before.
So something I felt like I should knowhow to do, and yet I made some mistakes.
And sometimes I have a fairly hightolerance for just blundering on
and making mistakes and learningfrom making those mistakes.
(05:31):
And that's fine because this piecethat I'm knitting is just for me.
I'm not trying to sell it to anyone.
It's for me.
I'm enjoying the process of making it.
When it's finished, I willenjoy the process of wearing it.
It will be a product thatI will enjoy wearing.
And I do have, as I say, ahigh tolerance for looking at.
Mistakes that I've made in a patternand going, oh yeah, I remember where
I was when I did that, or, I knowwhy, I know what I learned from that.
(05:54):
So I'm, pretty okay with making mistakesin my work and I'm kind of the same in
my writing as well, but I'm not tryingto sell it to anyone at, none of these
pieces are getting sent out next week.
They will all get looked atand if I need to make them
for an audience, the same way as if Iwas making a sweater for someone else,
(06:16):
I would have to make it right for them.
If I was trying to make these storiesright, then I would go to somebody who
knows how to do this and learn from them.
So in the case of my knitting, I wentto the designer, he has a YouTube,
Steven West, I have a, he has a YouTubechannel, and I looked up his instructions
on how to do this stitch, which Ithought I knew how to do, and I was
making assumptions, and I did it wrong.
(06:38):
And, I was okay with the, what Iactually ended up with was something
novel, so I was okay with it.
The mistakes I made, I'm leavingin and I'm just starting the
next section doing it right.
once I got going on the next section,I really had to keep going for
quite a long time until I got thetechnique down longer than I expected.
And this is something that Ithought really, reminded me a
(07:01):
story a day, because you can write.
But if you want to write well, if youwant to write fluidly, if you want to
write prolifically, if you want to writecreatively, if you want to write in
different genres, if you want to honeyour voice, you have to keep at it.
You have to keep at it for a while, and
(07:23):
you have to try things.
You have to make it real, not somethingyou can do once, something you can do
every day, and you don't have to do itevery day for the rest of your life.
You don't even have to do itevery day during this challenge.
But committing and giving yourselfthe gift of some focused time to
practice the thing that you wantto practice is really useful.
(07:45):
Makes it a lot easier when you come backto it, but every time you come back to it,
you have to pay attention to the details.
Are you actually writing thingsthe way you want to, or are you
making assumptions about whatreaders will hear from your words?
Like I was making assumptions abouthow this stitch should be knitted.
So that's what I'm thinkingabout with my writing today.
It is okay to take a day off.
(08:09):
It's okay to not like the prompt.
It's okay to not use the prompts, butif you do use the prompts, dig deep.
The first idea that you come upwith will never be your best idea.
Keep digging.
It might be your best idea.
I hate to say, I hate to say things.
I hate to say thingsin absolutes like that.
(08:30):
Maybe your best first idea is your bestidea, but chances are if you keep digging,
you're going to come up with somethingthat surprises you and everyone else.
And once you start writing,the actual writing is where the
creativity is really going to kick in.
My story started being about why wouldsomeone take this perfect blossom
and try and make it more perfect.
(08:51):
Arguably less perfect.
Why would they create a hybrid of it?
My story ended up being aboutworkers' rights [chuckles].
So you never know where things are gonnago until you actually start writing.
You can theorize, you can brainstorm,you can imagine the most perfect story
(09:13):
in the world, but you don't know what'sgonna happen until you start writing.
And if you need to take a day offto recharge and refill and put some
input in so that you get some goodoutput, then go ahead and do that.
But just keep coming back.
Don't be the guy from the first day whosaid, bleurgh!, I didn't like this prompt.
Maybe tomorrow and then never came back.
(09:36):
Be one of the hundreds of otherpeople who come back and keep
trying and let themselves failand let themselves discover what
happens when you make a mess.
Maybe you'll like it, like my knitting,maybe you'll like the mess that you made.
Maybe you'll say, ah, that'swhat I was doing wrong.
Maybe you'll find outsomething about your process.
you're trying to write first thing inthe morning, but you're a night owl
(09:58):
or you're trying to write after lunchand all you wanna do is take a nap.
Ah, that's what I was doing wrong.
You'll never know until you try anduntil you stick with it for a while.
So join us in StoryADayMay and experiment.
Make a mess.
Have fun.
Get into the comments andtell people what you're up to.
If you haven't read thecomments, that story a day yet,
go in and have a look at them.
(10:19):
It's really inspiring seeing all ofthese other people making a mess, having
fun, trying stuff, being courageous,giving it a shot, and just writing.
So keep writing.
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