April 5, 2025 • 30 mins
Get ready for StoryADay May with these warm-up tasks in April PLUS: hear about the wonderful writers who have sent us prompts for this year's challenge sign up at: https://storyaday.org
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(00:00):
Good morning, goodevening, good afternoon.
(00:02):
Julie, here from The Story A Day podcastcoming to you from the beginning of April.
It's the beginning of April.
You know what that means?
StoryADay May is only a month away.
Now, there's a whole yearin which you are writing.
I'm aware of this.
This is not the only time,
I hope, during the yearthat you're writing.
But this is an amazing time of year.
(00:22):
StoryADay May is not for everyone,but if you make your own rules,
it can be for a lot of people.
And here's why I'm trying to encourageyou to participate in StoryADay May,
sometimes we get a little caught up.
In taking our writing seriously, weshould take our writing seriously.
It's a serious business.
It's a serious craft.
(00:43):
We love reading.
We love writing.
We take it very seriously, butsometimes that can squish all
the fun out of writing for us.
Challenges like story Aadeand other time limited.
Extreme creativity challenges dothis thing for us, and that is
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they free us from perfectionism.
They teach us to keepgoing no matter what.
They help us learn how webecome creatives in this world.
How do you find time, maketime to write in this world?
On an average day, it's really hard.
You take a month and concentrate that.
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Your attention on the challengeof making time to write,
you're gonna learn some things.
It also a challenge, specifically likestory a day gives you the opportunity to.
Try out a whole bunch of thingsthat you would never think of doing.
There's a desperation that kicksin after a few days of writing
a story a day, me, which reallyfeeds your creativity and the only.
(01:50):
Way to embrace it is not to treatit like a task you have to complete,
but like a wave you're surfing, youmight fall in, but then you just grab
your board and get back up again.
I always tell people don't try andcatch up if you don't live up to
your expectations for the month.
Just keep moving forward.
If you stick with us throughout thewhole month, whether or not you're
(02:12):
actually writing a story a day, if you.
Set some commitments for yourselfto write more than you would
otherwise and stick to them.
And if you keep opening the DA dailyemails and looking at the daily
prompts, you will be thinking aboutyour writing far more in a far more
intense and creative way than you doon the other 11 months of the year.
(02:34):
So if you have signed up for StoryADayMay, 2025, you will already be receiving
daily emails from me on weekdays duringApril with a bunch of tiny tasks that
are intended to create, not just.
That they're intended to createtools you can draw on when
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the month of May comes around.
I have done this challenge,this is my 16th year.
I have done it many different ways.
The first year, put noplanning into it whatsoever.
Didn't do any warmup writing didn'tgo as well as I thought it would.
I was a little rusty.
It was hard.
Don't do that.
Do some warm up writing this month.
So some of the things that I'm sendingout this month are tiny tasks that
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you can do five days a week to getto gather material that you can draw
on during the month of May, and alsoto get your head in the right place.
For the month of May, so this first week,I'm getting you to gather material so that
on a day when you're not inspired, youcan look back at the things you gathered
in April and go, okay, I'll use that.
Okay, I'll write aboutthat kind of character.
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Okay, I'll use that.
Setting things that you think aboutahead of time and not when you're under
the crunch of a deadline can be greatfor getting the creativity started.
Once you're writing, once you haveyour story started on a given day,
there's a ton of other types ofcreativity that will bubble up
and you'll never be more creativethan when you're actually writing.
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But in order to take the step from notwriting to in the middle of a story,
that one can be a bit of a heavy lift.
So the exercises I'm giving you issending out in your email if you're
signed up in April, are intended tocreate a bunch of material for you to
draw on so that you're not feeling.
The double pressure of coming up witha novel idea, figuring out how to use a
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prompt and write about it, and, completea story all at the same time while you're
under a time crunch and the rest ofyour life is crowding in on you as well.
So get sign up story day,come over to story day.org,
right there on the front page.
You can sign up for thechallenge, and then I will
start sending you these emails.
What I'm gonna do on the podcast todayis I'm gonna tell you about the five.
I think it's just four thisweek, next week will be five.
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I'm gonna tell you about thechallenges I have issued, the tiny
tasks I have issued this week soyou can catch up with them today.
This is something you can catch up with.
I don't recommend trying to catch upwith the stories during story of day may,
but these tiny tasks, you can absolutelycatch up with them this weekend,
tomorrow, whenever you want to do them.
So here's what I have challenged peopleto do every day in the past week, and if
(05:03):
you come back next week, I'll have more.
For next week as well.
And if you stick around after thesetasks, I'm gonna give you a sneak
preview of some of the amazingwriters who have shared their brains
with us this year and given us.
Prompts.
Some of them are award winners.
Most of them actually areaward-winning writers.
Some of them teach at a really highlevel at colleges and universities,
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and they've shared a prompt ora lesson with us that they might
use with those high level courses.
Some of them.
Have dug deep and given us,really thoughtful prompts.
Some of them have given us throwawaylines that are going to spark so
many different types of stories.
So stay tuned after this little interludewhere I give you some tasks and I will
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reward you with announcement about who youcan expect to see writing prompts from.
It's an incomplete list.
Currently, but it's a goodlist, so stay tuned for that.
And now let's get to our writing,tiny Tasks for preparation for Story.
Amy, I strongly recommend before we getstarted here, that you set up some kind of
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document or notebook for this prep work.
Write out these questions, come overwith the blog, download them, get
them from your email, whatever you'redoing, write out these questions.
And spend a little bit oftime with them each day.
You don't have to do it inreal time 'cause I'm just gonna
rattle through them right here.
But grab a notebook thatyou're gonna dedicate to this.
If you like to hand write or open up afile on your phone or open up a file on
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your computer or your tablet, or howeveryou like to write, grab these questions
and commit to spending a little bitof time with them and then next week.
Answer the questions in the sameplace so that when the challenge comes
around, you're not scrambling for 1,001.
Post-it notes and wondering if youput it in your phone or your Trello,
or your notebook or your journal.
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Pick one place for your story a dayprep and stick to it, not for the rest
of your life, just for this month.
Okay, are we ready?
Okay, so since there were only fourweekdays in April this week, I'm
gonna give you that as day task zerois to set up your workspace, get
yourself a notebook, get yourselfa file or a folder where you're
gonna do all of this prep work.
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Keep it all in one place.
So that you can access iteasily during the challenge.
That's task zero.
Off you go.
Now, Task one that I sent out onthe 1st of April is about making
the challenge work for you.
This challenge.
This story of the adventure is abouthelping you trend towards more writing,
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happier writing, more fulfillment.
It's not about makingyou write 31 stories.
It's about helping you discover how to bea more creative, more productive writer.
And in the, and along the way.
Becoming a more fulfilled writer.
So I have a document that you can comeover to the blog if you come over to
story day.org/making the challenge workfor you with, in between those words you
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will see a link to a document called TheCreative Commute, which is a lesson about
making that transition from daily life to.
Creating.
There are lots of waysthat you can do that.
A lot of them take a lot of time.
So I've developed this short version.
So here you can download that file,but here's the short version of what
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I tell you in that, and I want youto think about trying this out today.
So because transitioning from daily lifeto writing time can be hard with lots of
noise and chatter going on in your head.
A lot of us use things like mourning pagesand free writing and all these rituals
to ease ourselves into the writing,to empty our brains of all of the.
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Chatter so that we can get to the creativestuff, and that's wonderful and perfect
if you have all the time in the world.
And even then it doesn't always work.
So I experimented recently with doingwhat I called a creative commute,
which was a much more abbreviatedand targeted version of that kind
of free writing or mour page type.
Experience.
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They can steal all of your writingtime and energy if you let them just
go on and on, and they might not haveanything to do with your actual project.
So here's what I recommend.
Set a timer for no more than a thirdof your available writing time.
So for example, in the story of daysuperstars, we get together and we do
these hour long writing sprints, but webreak them up into 25 minute segments.
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We chat for a bit.
We write for 25 minutes, wechat for a bit, we write for
25 minutes, we say goodbye.
So when I sit down to write in themorning with the superstars, I have
25 minutes to do something and thatcan easily be taken out by morning
pages or free writing or whatever.
So what I've started doing is settinga timer for a third of that time, which
works out to about eight minutes, I think.
And I just write like thewind for those eight minutes.
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And the trick is toreally focus on writing.
So I will focus on, I recommend thatyou focus on something that, that
you noticed in the last 24 hours.
Something that delighted you, somethingthat annoyed you, something that you
smelled, just something that is vivid thatyou can actually focus your writing on.
It might be something you read and justwrite about that in the most writerly
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way you can as if you are in the midstof an essay or a novel, and just write,
and don't stop for those eight minutesor whatever the third of your writing
time is that you need to warm up.
And then move on to theproject of your choice.
And it that short, intense burstof writing if you keep going and
don't stop, is enough to JT yourbrain out of everyday worries.
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And into a more creative space.
I also recommend keeping a piece ofpaper or a sheet nearby where you can
write down all the blurts that bubble up.
So you know, oh, I need to make anappointment to get my belly naval lint
cleaned out with the naval lint expert.
Have a piece of paperthere to write that down.
And then get back toyour creative writing.
Oh, I need to remember to call the school.
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Note that down.
Get back to your creative writing.
That's the creative commute.
You can come over and get a nicepretty PDF about it if you want,
but your task for one day isto test out a creative commute.
How quickly and intensely canyou jolt your brain from everyday
concerns into a writing space?
Don't take up all of youravailable writing time to do it.
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On day 2nd of April, I recommendedthat you start collecting story sparks.
This is a term I came upwith years ago for not.
Writing ideas, not story ideas, but justfor noticing stuff around the world.
So the color of that woman's coat, the.
Exact way that somebody said something.
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At the coffee shop, the smell of theearth, first thing in the morning when
you walk outta the front door and theleaf mold is there and the daffodils
are pushing up through the earth andspring has sprung and things like that.
That you can use, not to come upwith a premise for a story, but that
might just add depth to a story.
It might give you an idea that you cancombine with something else for a story.
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Don't worry about howyou're gonna use them.
Just walk through the worldlike a writer, catching details.
This is like your artist'ssketchbook, and I recommend that you
capture three story sparks a day.
So again, not story ideas, just details.
Color sensations, vivid moments that youmight include in a story or you might not.
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You can come over to theblog and get a story.
Sparks catcher, which is anice little foldable thing.
You can fold up.
So print it out and you fold it up andyou've got this little thing you can
pop in your pocket and carry aroundwith you and just write them all down.
Or you can dedicate a file inyour phone to catching your
tutorial story sparks every day.
Or use the document that I suggestedyou start for this, whatever you
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do, capture three story sparks a daybetween now and the end of the month.
And you will have more than enoughmaterial to spark stories, to make your
stories more deeper and more real duringMay, and you will never, ever have
to sit down and face the blank page.
On day 3rd of April, I encouraged youto spend set a timer for five minutes
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and start thinking about story moods.
There are so many decisions to makewhen you start writing a story.
Narrowing down your choices is a greatgift that you can give yourself now.
So your exercise is to think about.
What kind of moods you like in stories?
I'm not talking about genre, whetherit's sci-fi or fantasy or mystery or
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anything, like I'm talking about the mood.
Do you like stories wherethings are intriguing?
Where do you like stories, wherethings are exciting and fast-paced?
Do you like things thatmake you feel lifted up?
Do you like happy endings?
Do you like.
Grim endings.
Do you like to be terrified?
Do you like things that makeyou feel a little scared
about the state of the world?
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Thinking about the mood you liketo experience as a reader is going
to make it much easier for youto write things that you enjoy.
Write enjoy writing, that you'll enjoyreading, and that you'll stick with
if you like reading uplifting stories.
And when you sit down to write allyour stories come out kinda miserable
because there's a reason for that.
Sad emotions are intense and we, they'reeasier for us to access in our memories.
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So a lot of people end up writingsad or depressing stories when
they're not really enjoying it.
And if you do that, you're not gonnaenjoy the process of writing them.
So think about stories that you,the mood of stories that you
enjoy reading and write them downand choose some examples from.
Short stories, novels, television, movies,music or visual arts that represent
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the moods that you particularly enjoy.
And write those down.
And then make a few notes aboutthe elements in those things which
contribute most to the mood that youexperience as you're consuming them.
And keep that list handy becausewhen you sit down to write in me, I
don't want your stories to take offon a. Path of their own completely.
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You are driving this bus, so if yourstory starts to get depressing and
you aren't enjoying writing it, orit gets cynical and you don't want
to be cynical, you get to consultyour list of moods and go, oh, look,
cynicism and dark are not on that list.
No wonder I'm not havingany fun with this.
Let's see how I can take this story ideaand turn it into something that will be
scary or inspiring or funny or romantic.
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Or that has an ambiguous ending, nota depressing one or not a happy one.
So keep notes on thetypes of moods you enjoy.
Examples of works that exemplify thosemoods, and if you can figure out what
elements it can are contained in thoseother works that contribute to that mood.
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Is there humor in the story?
Is there, are there jump scares?
What is it that's creating thesensation that you're enjoying?
Make those notes and then justdo that for five or 10 minutes.
Keep that list handy and use it as atool to direct you during story a day.
And the final warmup exercise I hadfor you in the first week of April was
to get started on settings setting.
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It can be so important to a storyand we don't always think about it.
We quite often think about who'sin this story and what's gonna
happen to them, but where ithappens can also be really helpful.
And again, when you sit down to writea story every day in May, there's
so many choices to make every day.
It can be handy to have a list of thingsthat you've thought about beforehand.
So today I am going to encourageyou to write a few lists.
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Set a timer for fiveto 10 minutes and list.
Five big picture settings where youmight be interested in setting stories.
So that might be contemporaryUSA Mars settlement or in a Mars
settlement in the early days of,of settling on other planets.
You might think that writing about a cargoship in the age of sale is interesting.
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You might think that aboutwriting on a cargo ship in a
far future where space travel isrelatively routine is interesting.
You might think about writing in afantasy world that contains dragons
or that doesn't contain dragons.
So that's your first list.
Five big picture settingsthat you might like to use.
Now, five closeup settings.
This is particularly good.
To think about for writing shortstories and flash fiction, because
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most of your action is probablygoing to take place in one setting.
It's probably gonnatake place in one room.
It might take place in one chair.
It's gonna take place in one moment.
So what kinds of settings might you use?
So cargo ship in the far future.
When space travel is relativelyroutine, is a big setting, you're
not gonna be, you need to narrowthat down for a short story.
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So maybe you're writing aboutsomebody in the engine room.
Another setting from your largersettings might be an open plan office.
W with or without cubicles.
You might think about thebackseat of a ride share car.
You might think about the throne roomin your fantasy kingdom, or you might
think about a particular set of hillsthat you've enjoyed walking through,
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or a particular spot by a river thatyour characters might be sitting at.
So closeup settings.
Think of five closeup settings you might.
Be interested in using in your stories.
And for each of those, make a quicknote about what thrills you about
that setting something about thatsetting brought it to your mind.
And I think there's a little thrill and Idon't see why we should waste our creative
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time on things that don't thrill us.
If you said, oh, I should probablywrite about an open plan office, but
it doesn't thrill you because youcan't, you've never worked in one.
You can't, don't, youjust know the people do.
Scratch that off your list.
But if you've been in one of thosethings and you, that brings to mind a
whole host of characters and conflictpossibilities, write that down.
This is why I think an openplan obviously might be good.
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Another reason it might thrillyou is because you don't have
to do any research for it.
Like it's something that you knowreally well, that's fine, that's a
perfectly good reason to write itdown, or it might thrill you because
it gives you the opportunity tomash up two things that you love.
Like the engine room onthe ship might give you a.
On the spaceship might give you anopportunity to mash up Star Trek and The
Expanse if you love both of those shows.
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Or, thinking about walking in Nature mightgive you an opportunity to hang out with
a fictional character that you've alwaysloved who walked on that particular trail.
For each setting that you came up with.
Make a quick note about what thrillsyou or intrigues you about it, what
possibilities you see for it, andthen for each of them write down.
And all of this is optional, by the way.
You don't have to do all of this, but doas much of it as seems fun and then stop.
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For each of them.
You can also write down onephysical detail that springs
to mind about your setting.
One of the dangers of writing fastdrafts of stories is that we can
forget to put physical stuff into them.
We can forget about setting.
So if you think through each of thesettings that you've written down and
come up with one physical detail aboutthem that you might be able to use,
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whether it's a smell, a sight, a sound.
The particular type of flower that growsalong that trail that you like to walk,
whatever it is, one particular detail.
And then for each of them, if youreally want to keep going with this
exercise, which I recommend, writedown another detail about each of
the settings that would not be.
Quite so obvious tosomeone at a first glance.
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This is another reason why it's good touse places, because an open plan office
might seem very beige, but if you'veworked in one, you'll have a detail like
the way people put their names on thefood in the fridge or one, some other
detail, a path that you walk down where.
It's overcast, but when you turnthis particular corner, the whole
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vista opens out in front of you andit catches your breath every time.
So another de, so a detail that might beseem fairly obvious about your setting.
And then another detail which wouldnot be so obvious at first glance.
And when we get into thinkingabout characters, you get to make
decisions about what your characterwould notice in these settings.
So practice that today and then final.
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Final point for this one is to go throughwhat you just wrote and circle three of
them or highlight three of them that youthink would work best for you for the
fast drafting world of story at a may.
So the ones that need the most research,probably not ideal, doesn't mean you
can't write about them, but the onesthat need virtually no research.
'cause you can just closeyour eyes and you're there.
They might be the ones you want to choose.
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They also might be the ones thatare most boring to you, so they may
not be the ones you want to choose.
Your mileage will vary.
And those are the tiny tasks thatI sent out this week by email.
When I talk about them, it sounds likea lot more than when I write them down.
So sign up for the challenge, geton my email list, and I will send
them to you every weekday in April.
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And the task should take youless time than you've just spent
listening to me talk about them.
Oh, and if you know anyone else who'salways been complaining that they don't
have time to write, they never write,they want to write someday, they want
to write one day, tell them to sign upto, they get to make their own rules.
They don't have to write a story aday, but they will get all of this
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good stuff, all of these warmupexercises, all of this excitement.
I'm just throwing itall out there this year.
There are curated courses that you cantake over at story a day, like last
year's story day Challenge handbook,which was a very step by step journey
through a month of writing short stories.
You could do that thisyear if you want to.
You can sign up for that one.
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There is a fee associated with that.
The challenge that I doevery year though, is free.
You just sign up.
It's my gift to the writing community andthe more people who take part, the better.
'cause I'm doing all this work anyway.
So I just love to see tons of peopletaking part and it does my ego good.
And also I just, I love the idea ofpeople stopping, seeing I want to
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write somebody and actually writing.
In 2010, which was quite sometime ago now, I came up with a
tagline for this challenge, whichis Right today, not someday.
And that's all we have.
So if you have a friend who'salways saying, I want to write more,
sign them up for the challenge.
No, don't sign them up.
Get them to sign up for the challenge.
Send them to story.org, get 'em to signup for the challenge, and they'll get
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these emails with the warmup tasks too.
I promised you a list of some ofthe prompters who are gonna be
giving us a peek inside their brainsthis month, this coming month.
In StoryADay May I'm always amazedI send out messages to award-winning
bestselling, award nominated writers,people who are at the top of their
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game with huge audiences and sometimes.
A lot of them say yes and they giveus writing prompts because they know
exactly what we're going through.
'cause we're, we are all writersand they know that some days
you need a writing prompt.
Some of the people that send us promptsare writing teachers and they send us.
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Exercises that they'vetaken from their classes.
Some of them are writing teachersand don't send us that kinda stuff.
They just send us a littlethought that they have.
Some of them are just bestsellingaward-winning authors who send us
really thoughtful sparks from their ownfiles, from something in their head.
Here without further ado, arethe, some of the names of the
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bestselling Nebula Award-winning.
Hugo Award winning, BestAmerican Short Story collected.
Bram Stoker, nominated Edgar winning.
And other, all other kinds of accoladesthat these writers have who are
giving us writing prompts this year.
And this is only some of them.
There are more than this.
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So first of all, we have
P. Djeli Clark.
Mary Robinette.
Kowal.
John Wiswell.
Lori Osland.
Kim Coleman Foote, Sasha Brown.
RSA.
Garcia.
Jennifer Hudak.
Tim Wagoner.
Rachel Bolton.
Julia.
Elliot, Kai Lovelace, AngelaSylvaine, Rich Larson.
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FE Choe, Emma Burnett, PatriciaA. Jackson, Allegra Hyde and more.
So some of those writers,you will know their names.
You may have read some of theirstuff, some of them you won't.
But if you go looking for them, andI'll certainly have information about
each of them with each of the prompts.
And you'll see that the, these areserious writers who are who are doing.
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The thing.
So it's really fun every year to get apeek inside their brains and see what kind
of things they come up with to prompt us.
Last year I did a 15th anniversaryversion of the challenge where I created
a sort of curriculum for you to followthrough the months, and you can do it.
Yourself, through the monthor throughout the year.
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And that's still available.
It's on the site as the storya Day Challenge handbook.
And it takes you in week one fromwriting prompts to get you to your desk.
And they're relatively easy to follow intoweek two, which is about the craft of the
storytelling into week three, which isweird and wonderful short story formats
and so on through the month and scenarios.
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I think in week four.
And then week five we mopup with with a bunch of.
Odd and revisited type of prompts, andyou can get that and you can follow
through that and have it available toyou on your own schedule at any time.
If you come over to story aday.org/handbook that's available
to you forever as far as foreverexists in this digital world.
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But this year I went back to inviting.
Guests to give us prompts.
So the course is less of a journeythrough the skills of writing and more
of a, Hey, what are we gonna get today?
So I'm alternating the prompt betweenones that are a little, easier to absorb.
And then at the weekends, I'm usingthe ones which I'm placing the ones
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which take a little more thoughtand I'm trying to alternate between
heavy prompts and throwaway prompts.
Not, throwaways.
Sounds derogatory, but I'm, the lighterprompts, which are just easier for
you to, either they're restrictivein terms of word count or use these
words in your story, and they'rejust like, oh my goodness, I have
no idea what I'm gonna do with this.
Let me write.
And the other ones, which are a littlemore, Ooh, that's really interesting.
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Let me think about that for a minute.
So I'm alternating those types of prompts.
So you can come to the challenge every dayif the prompt that I, that one of these
writers has sub, has submitted to us.
Doesn't spark your interest thatday, or it seems oh, I wanna
get my teeth into that one.
I'm gonna save it for June or July.
That's fine.
That's why I'm encouraging you to gatherstory sparks now so that you can use
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them in conjunction with the prompts.
Or if the prompt doesn't strikeyou on a day, give it a few
minutes and work with it.
A lot of times people havelooked at prompts in the past
and gone, I hate this prompt.
I'm never gonna be able to write to this.
And then they write something whichreally surprises them and ends
up delighting them and being the.
Fa the favorite thing theywrote during the month.
So don't write off the promptsimmediately, but if you look at
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one of the prompts and you're like,I don't wanna write to that one.
That's fine.
Write your own thing.
But there will always besomething at the site to prompt
you every day of the challenge.
And it will come fromone of these writers.
It'll come from other writers.
Some of them will come from me, I think.
But there's plenty of stuff there.
So that's what's coming up.
Some amazing writers who aresharing with us peek inside
(28:13):
their brain and sending you all.
Immense good energy andwriterly, varied us there.
Every email I've had from all of thesewriters has been so encouraging and
sending all their best wishes to everybodywho's taking part in the challenge.
So use that energy as well.
That's what I have for you.
I know this is a long episode, soI'm going to cut it there and I am.
(28:34):
So excited to have you with us during thechallenge or during the rest of the year.
I will be opening up again theSuperstars Group, which is our
inner circle that will be opening upright before the challenge starts.
And it's a great way to find yourcommunity and keep the momentum going for
the next six months or longer if you like.
But really to have somewhere togo every day of the challenge.
(28:54):
'cause we do run writing sprints on Zoom.
We have a private.
Text-based community where you can hop inand ask for support and advice or just,
celebrate or commiserate with people.
So that's all coming soon too.
So watch out.
There will be a lot ofstuff for me this month.
I know, but it's, trying to get youexcited, trying to get you writing.
May is an amazing month for just bucklingdown and doing all that writing that
(29:18):
you want to do in a concentrated space.
Get yourself some first drafts that you'reready for the rest of the year to draw on.
I've been doing that this year.
I've been trying to write more, write andcomplete and submit more stories myself.
And I found myself going back to storya day, drafts from last year and the
year before and the year before that.
Things that I maybe didn't work onstraight away, and I'm like, oh.
(29:40):
I could turn that into something.
And there were some things thatwere a hundred words that I've
expanded out now to be 4,000 wordstories that are out on submission.
So take a month, get all yourideas out, join us, make your own
rules, sign up for the challenge.
If you haven't already, throw a day.orgor you can go over to through a.org/signup
for a shorter version of that signupprocess, and I will be sending you.
(30:03):
Weekdays in April.
Little motivational emails with plansfor you to take part in, like the stuff
that I talked about in this podcast.
Ti tiny tasks for every day thatwill help you amass material.
Get ready for the challenge,get your head in the right
place and get excited about it.
Alright, that's it for this week.
Happy writing.
(30:24):
And sign up story day.org.
Good morning, goodevening, good afternoon.
(00:02):
Julie, here from The Story A Day podcastcoming to you from the beginning of April.
It's the beginning of April.
You know what that means?
StoryADay May is only a month away.
Now, there's a whole yearin which you are writing.
I'm aware of this.
This is not the only time,
I hope, during the yearthat you're writing.
But this is an amazing time of year.
(00:22):
StoryADay May is not for everyone,but if you make your own rules,
it can be for a lot of people.
And here's why I'm trying to encourageyou to participate in StoryADay May,
sometimes we get a little caught up.
In taking our writing seriously, weshould take our writing seriously.
It's a serious business.
It's a serious craft.
(00:43):
We love reading.
We love writing.
We take it very seriously, butsometimes that can squish all
the fun out of writing for us.
Challenges like story Aadeand other time limited.
Extreme creativity challenges dothis thing for us, and that is
(01:04):
they free us from perfectionism.
They teach us to keepgoing no matter what.
They help us learn how webecome creatives in this world.
How do you find time, maketime to write in this world?
On an average day, it's really hard.
You take a month and concentrate that.
(01:26):
Your attention on the challengeof making time to write,
you're gonna learn some things.
It also a challenge, specifically likestory a day gives you the opportunity to.
Try out a whole bunch of thingsthat you would never think of doing.
There's a desperation that kicksin after a few days of writing
a story a day, me, which reallyfeeds your creativity and the only.
(01:50):
Way to embrace it is not to treatit like a task you have to complete,
but like a wave you're surfing, youmight fall in, but then you just grab
your board and get back up again.
I always tell people don't try andcatch up if you don't live up to
your expectations for the month.
Just keep moving forward.
If you stick with us throughout thewhole month, whether or not you're
(02:12):
actually writing a story a day, if you.
Set some commitments for yourselfto write more than you would
otherwise and stick to them.
And if you keep opening the DA dailyemails and looking at the daily
prompts, you will be thinking aboutyour writing far more in a far more
intense and creative way than you doon the other 11 months of the year.
(02:34):
So if you have signed up for StoryADayMay, 2025, you will already be receiving
daily emails from me on weekdays duringApril with a bunch of tiny tasks that
are intended to create, not just.
That they're intended to createtools you can draw on when
(02:54):
the month of May comes around.
I have done this challenge,this is my 16th year.
I have done it many different ways.
The first year, put noplanning into it whatsoever.
Didn't do any warmup writing didn'tgo as well as I thought it would.
I was a little rusty.
It was hard.
Don't do that.
Do some warm up writing this month.
So some of the things that I'm sendingout this month are tiny tasks that
(03:16):
you can do five days a week to getto gather material that you can draw
on during the month of May, and alsoto get your head in the right place.
For the month of May, so this first week,I'm getting you to gather material so that
on a day when you're not inspired, youcan look back at the things you gathered
in April and go, okay, I'll use that.
Okay, I'll write aboutthat kind of character.
(03:37):
Okay, I'll use that.
Setting things that you think aboutahead of time and not when you're under
the crunch of a deadline can be greatfor getting the creativity started.
Once you're writing, once you haveyour story started on a given day,
there's a ton of other types ofcreativity that will bubble up
and you'll never be more creativethan when you're actually writing.
(03:58):
But in order to take the step from notwriting to in the middle of a story,
that one can be a bit of a heavy lift.
So the exercises I'm giving you issending out in your email if you're
signed up in April, are intended tocreate a bunch of material for you to
draw on so that you're not feeling.
The double pressure of coming up witha novel idea, figuring out how to use a
(04:19):
prompt and write about it, and, completea story all at the same time while you're
under a time crunch and the rest ofyour life is crowding in on you as well.
So get sign up story day,come over to story day.org,
right there on the front page.
You can sign up for thechallenge, and then I will
start sending you these emails.
What I'm gonna do on the podcast todayis I'm gonna tell you about the five.
I think it's just four thisweek, next week will be five.
(04:40):
I'm gonna tell you about thechallenges I have issued, the tiny
tasks I have issued this week soyou can catch up with them today.
This is something you can catch up with.
I don't recommend trying to catch upwith the stories during story of day may,
but these tiny tasks, you can absolutelycatch up with them this weekend,
tomorrow, whenever you want to do them.
So here's what I have challenged peopleto do every day in the past week, and if
(05:03):
you come back next week, I'll have more.
For next week as well.
And if you stick around after thesetasks, I'm gonna give you a sneak
preview of some of the amazingwriters who have shared their brains
with us this year and given us.
Prompts.
Some of them are award winners.
Most of them actually areaward-winning writers.
Some of them teach at a really highlevel at colleges and universities,
(05:27):
and they've shared a prompt ora lesson with us that they might
use with those high level courses.
Some of them.
Have dug deep and given us,really thoughtful prompts.
Some of them have given us throwawaylines that are going to spark so
many different types of stories.
So stay tuned after this little interludewhere I give you some tasks and I will
(05:51):
reward you with announcement about who youcan expect to see writing prompts from.
It's an incomplete list.
Currently, but it's a goodlist, so stay tuned for that.
And now let's get to our writing,tiny Tasks for preparation for Story.
Amy, I strongly recommend before we getstarted here, that you set up some kind of
(06:13):
document or notebook for this prep work.
Write out these questions, come overwith the blog, download them, get
them from your email, whatever you'redoing, write out these questions.
And spend a little bit oftime with them each day.
You don't have to do it inreal time 'cause I'm just gonna
rattle through them right here.
But grab a notebook thatyou're gonna dedicate to this.
If you like to hand write or open up afile on your phone or open up a file on
(06:36):
your computer or your tablet, or howeveryou like to write, grab these questions
and commit to spending a little bitof time with them and then next week.
Answer the questions in the sameplace so that when the challenge comes
around, you're not scrambling for 1,001.
Post-it notes and wondering if youput it in your phone or your Trello,
or your notebook or your journal.
(06:57):
Pick one place for your story a dayprep and stick to it, not for the rest
of your life, just for this month.
Okay, are we ready?
Okay, so since there were only fourweekdays in April this week, I'm
gonna give you that as day task zerois to set up your workspace, get
yourself a notebook, get yourselfa file or a folder where you're
gonna do all of this prep work.
(07:17):
Keep it all in one place.
So that you can access iteasily during the challenge.
That's task zero.
Off you go.
Now, Task one that I sent out onthe 1st of April is about making
the challenge work for you.
This challenge.
This story of the adventure is abouthelping you trend towards more writing,
(07:39):
happier writing, more fulfillment.
It's not about makingyou write 31 stories.
It's about helping you discover how to bea more creative, more productive writer.
And in the, and along the way.
Becoming a more fulfilled writer.
So I have a document that you can comeover to the blog if you come over to
story day.org/making the challenge workfor you with, in between those words you
(08:04):
will see a link to a document called TheCreative Commute, which is a lesson about
making that transition from daily life to.
Creating.
There are lots of waysthat you can do that.
A lot of them take a lot of time.
So I've developed this short version.
So here you can download that file,but here's the short version of what
(08:26):
I tell you in that, and I want youto think about trying this out today.
So because transitioning from daily lifeto writing time can be hard with lots of
noise and chatter going on in your head.
A lot of us use things like mourning pagesand free writing and all these rituals
to ease ourselves into the writing,to empty our brains of all of the.
(08:49):
Chatter so that we can get to the creativestuff, and that's wonderful and perfect
if you have all the time in the world.
And even then it doesn't always work.
So I experimented recently with doingwhat I called a creative commute,
which was a much more abbreviatedand targeted version of that kind
of free writing or mour page type.
Experience.
(09:10):
They can steal all of your writingtime and energy if you let them just
go on and on, and they might not haveanything to do with your actual project.
So here's what I recommend.
Set a timer for no more than a thirdof your available writing time.
So for example, in the story of daysuperstars, we get together and we do
these hour long writing sprints, but webreak them up into 25 minute segments.
(09:30):
We chat for a bit.
We write for 25 minutes, wechat for a bit, we write for
25 minutes, we say goodbye.
So when I sit down to write in themorning with the superstars, I have
25 minutes to do something and thatcan easily be taken out by morning
pages or free writing or whatever.
So what I've started doing is settinga timer for a third of that time, which
works out to about eight minutes, I think.
And I just write like thewind for those eight minutes.
(09:54):
And the trick is toreally focus on writing.
So I will focus on, I recommend thatyou focus on something that, that
you noticed in the last 24 hours.
Something that delighted you, somethingthat annoyed you, something that you
smelled, just something that is vivid thatyou can actually focus your writing on.
It might be something you read and justwrite about that in the most writerly
(10:17):
way you can as if you are in the midstof an essay or a novel, and just write,
and don't stop for those eight minutesor whatever the third of your writing
time is that you need to warm up.
And then move on to theproject of your choice.
And it that short, intense burstof writing if you keep going and
don't stop, is enough to JT yourbrain out of everyday worries.
(10:41):
And into a more creative space.
I also recommend keeping a piece ofpaper or a sheet nearby where you can
write down all the blurts that bubble up.
So you know, oh, I need to make anappointment to get my belly naval lint
cleaned out with the naval lint expert.
Have a piece of paperthere to write that down.
And then get back toyour creative writing.
Oh, I need to remember to call the school.
(11:03):
Note that down.
Get back to your creative writing.
That's the creative commute.
You can come over and get a nicepretty PDF about it if you want,
but your task for one day isto test out a creative commute.
How quickly and intensely canyou jolt your brain from everyday
concerns into a writing space?
Don't take up all of youravailable writing time to do it.
(11:23):
On day 2nd of April, I recommendedthat you start collecting story sparks.
This is a term I came upwith years ago for not.
Writing ideas, not story ideas, but justfor noticing stuff around the world.
So the color of that woman's coat, the.
Exact way that somebody said something.
(11:45):
At the coffee shop, the smell of theearth, first thing in the morning when
you walk outta the front door and theleaf mold is there and the daffodils
are pushing up through the earth andspring has sprung and things like that.
That you can use, not to come upwith a premise for a story, but that
might just add depth to a story.
It might give you an idea that you cancombine with something else for a story.
(12:09):
Don't worry about howyou're gonna use them.
Just walk through the worldlike a writer, catching details.
This is like your artist'ssketchbook, and I recommend that you
capture three story sparks a day.
So again, not story ideas, just details.
Color sensations, vivid moments that youmight include in a story or you might not.
(12:33):
You can come over to theblog and get a story.
Sparks catcher, which is anice little foldable thing.
You can fold up.
So print it out and you fold it up andyou've got this little thing you can
pop in your pocket and carry aroundwith you and just write them all down.
Or you can dedicate a file inyour phone to catching your
tutorial story sparks every day.
Or use the document that I suggestedyou start for this, whatever you
(12:54):
do, capture three story sparks a daybetween now and the end of the month.
And you will have more than enoughmaterial to spark stories, to make your
stories more deeper and more real duringMay, and you will never, ever have
to sit down and face the blank page.
On day 3rd of April, I encouraged youto spend set a timer for five minutes
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and start thinking about story moods.
There are so many decisions to makewhen you start writing a story.
Narrowing down your choices is a greatgift that you can give yourself now.
So your exercise is to think about.
What kind of moods you like in stories?
I'm not talking about genre, whetherit's sci-fi or fantasy or mystery or
(13:36):
anything, like I'm talking about the mood.
Do you like stories wherethings are intriguing?
Where do you like stories, wherethings are exciting and fast-paced?
Do you like things thatmake you feel lifted up?
Do you like happy endings?
Do you like.
Grim endings.
Do you like to be terrified?
Do you like things that makeyou feel a little scared
about the state of the world?
(13:57):
Thinking about the mood you liketo experience as a reader is going
to make it much easier for youto write things that you enjoy.
Write enjoy writing, that you'll enjoyreading, and that you'll stick with
if you like reading uplifting stories.
And when you sit down to write allyour stories come out kinda miserable
because there's a reason for that.
Sad emotions are intense and we, they'reeasier for us to access in our memories.
(14:21):
So a lot of people end up writingsad or depressing stories when
they're not really enjoying it.
And if you do that, you're not gonnaenjoy the process of writing them.
So think about stories that you,the mood of stories that you
enjoy reading and write them downand choose some examples from.
Short stories, novels, television, movies,music or visual arts that represent
(14:43):
the moods that you particularly enjoy.
And write those down.
And then make a few notes aboutthe elements in those things which
contribute most to the mood that youexperience as you're consuming them.
And keep that list handy becausewhen you sit down to write in me, I
don't want your stories to take offon a. Path of their own completely.
(15:06):
You are driving this bus, so if yourstory starts to get depressing and
you aren't enjoying writing it, orit gets cynical and you don't want
to be cynical, you get to consultyour list of moods and go, oh, look,
cynicism and dark are not on that list.
No wonder I'm not havingany fun with this.
Let's see how I can take this story ideaand turn it into something that will be
scary or inspiring or funny or romantic.
(15:31):
Or that has an ambiguous ending, nota depressing one or not a happy one.
So keep notes on thetypes of moods you enjoy.
Examples of works that exemplify thosemoods, and if you can figure out what
elements it can are contained in thoseother works that contribute to that mood.
(15:53):
Is there humor in the story?
Is there, are there jump scares?
What is it that's creating thesensation that you're enjoying?
Make those notes and then justdo that for five or 10 minutes.
Keep that list handy and use it as atool to direct you during story a day.
And the final warmup exercise I hadfor you in the first week of April was
to get started on settings setting.
(16:16):
It can be so important to a storyand we don't always think about it.
We quite often think about who'sin this story and what's gonna
happen to them, but where ithappens can also be really helpful.
And again, when you sit down to writea story every day in May, there's
so many choices to make every day.
It can be handy to have a list of thingsthat you've thought about beforehand.
So today I am going to encourageyou to write a few lists.
(16:39):
Set a timer for fiveto 10 minutes and list.
Five big picture settings where youmight be interested in setting stories.
So that might be contemporaryUSA Mars settlement or in a Mars
settlement in the early days of,of settling on other planets.
You might think that writing about a cargoship in the age of sale is interesting.
(17:02):
You might think that aboutwriting on a cargo ship in a
far future where space travel isrelatively routine is interesting.
You might think about writing in afantasy world that contains dragons
or that doesn't contain dragons.
So that's your first list.
Five big picture settingsthat you might like to use.
Now, five closeup settings.
This is particularly good.
To think about for writing shortstories and flash fiction, because
(17:25):
most of your action is probablygoing to take place in one setting.
It's probably gonnatake place in one room.
It might take place in one chair.
It's gonna take place in one moment.
So what kinds of settings might you use?
So cargo ship in the far future.
When space travel is relativelyroutine, is a big setting, you're
not gonna be, you need to narrowthat down for a short story.
(17:46):
So maybe you're writing aboutsomebody in the engine room.
Another setting from your largersettings might be an open plan office.
W with or without cubicles.
You might think about thebackseat of a ride share car.
You might think about the throne roomin your fantasy kingdom, or you might
think about a particular set of hillsthat you've enjoyed walking through,
(18:12):
or a particular spot by a river thatyour characters might be sitting at.
So closeup settings.
Think of five closeup settings you might.
Be interested in using in your stories.
And for each of those, make a quicknote about what thrills you about
that setting something about thatsetting brought it to your mind.
And I think there's a little thrill and Idon't see why we should waste our creative
(18:33):
time on things that don't thrill us.
If you said, oh, I should probablywrite about an open plan office, but
it doesn't thrill you because youcan't, you've never worked in one.
You can't, don't, youjust know the people do.
Scratch that off your list.
But if you've been in one of thosethings and you, that brings to mind a
whole host of characters and conflictpossibilities, write that down.
This is why I think an openplan obviously might be good.
(18:55):
Another reason it might thrillyou is because you don't have
to do any research for it.
Like it's something that you knowreally well, that's fine, that's a
perfectly good reason to write itdown, or it might thrill you because
it gives you the opportunity tomash up two things that you love.
Like the engine room onthe ship might give you a.
On the spaceship might give you anopportunity to mash up Star Trek and The
Expanse if you love both of those shows.
(19:17):
Or, thinking about walking in Nature mightgive you an opportunity to hang out with
a fictional character that you've alwaysloved who walked on that particular trail.
For each setting that you came up with.
Make a quick note about what thrillsyou or intrigues you about it, what
possibilities you see for it, andthen for each of them write down.
And all of this is optional, by the way.
You don't have to do all of this, but doas much of it as seems fun and then stop.
(19:41):
For each of them.
You can also write down onephysical detail that springs
to mind about your setting.
One of the dangers of writing fastdrafts of stories is that we can
forget to put physical stuff into them.
We can forget about setting.
So if you think through each of thesettings that you've written down and
come up with one physical detail aboutthem that you might be able to use,
(20:02):
whether it's a smell, a sight, a sound.
The particular type of flower that growsalong that trail that you like to walk,
whatever it is, one particular detail.
And then for each of them, if youreally want to keep going with this
exercise, which I recommend, writedown another detail about each of
the settings that would not be.
Quite so obvious tosomeone at a first glance.
(20:25):
This is another reason why it's good touse places, because an open plan office
might seem very beige, but if you'veworked in one, you'll have a detail like
the way people put their names on thefood in the fridge or one, some other
detail, a path that you walk down where.
It's overcast, but when you turnthis particular corner, the whole
(20:47):
vista opens out in front of you andit catches your breath every time.
So another de, so a detail that might beseem fairly obvious about your setting.
And then another detail which wouldnot be so obvious at first glance.
And when we get into thinkingabout characters, you get to make
decisions about what your characterwould notice in these settings.
So practice that today and then final.
(21:07):
Final point for this one is to go throughwhat you just wrote and circle three of
them or highlight three of them that youthink would work best for you for the
fast drafting world of story at a may.
So the ones that need the most research,probably not ideal, doesn't mean you
can't write about them, but the onesthat need virtually no research.
'cause you can just closeyour eyes and you're there.
They might be the ones you want to choose.
(21:28):
They also might be the ones thatare most boring to you, so they may
not be the ones you want to choose.
Your mileage will vary.
And those are the tiny tasks thatI sent out this week by email.
When I talk about them, it sounds likea lot more than when I write them down.
So sign up for the challenge, geton my email list, and I will send
them to you every weekday in April.
(21:49):
And the task should take youless time than you've just spent
listening to me talk about them.
Oh, and if you know anyone else who'salways been complaining that they don't
have time to write, they never write,they want to write someday, they want
to write one day, tell them to sign upto, they get to make their own rules.
They don't have to write a story aday, but they will get all of this
(22:10):
good stuff, all of these warmupexercises, all of this excitement.
I'm just throwing itall out there this year.
There are curated courses that you cantake over at story a day, like last
year's story day Challenge handbook,which was a very step by step journey
through a month of writing short stories.
You could do that thisyear if you want to.
You can sign up for that one.
(22:31):
There is a fee associated with that.
The challenge that I doevery year though, is free.
You just sign up.
It's my gift to the writing community andthe more people who take part, the better.
'cause I'm doing all this work anyway.
So I just love to see tons of peopletaking part and it does my ego good.
And also I just, I love the idea ofpeople stopping, seeing I want to
(22:52):
write somebody and actually writing.
In 2010, which was quite sometime ago now, I came up with a
tagline for this challenge, whichis Right today, not someday.
And that's all we have.
So if you have a friend who'salways saying, I want to write more,
sign them up for the challenge.
No, don't sign them up.
Get them to sign up for the challenge.
Send them to story.org, get 'em to signup for the challenge, and they'll get
(23:14):
these emails with the warmup tasks too.
I promised you a list of some ofthe prompters who are gonna be
giving us a peek inside their brainsthis month, this coming month.
In StoryADay May I'm always amazedI send out messages to award-winning
bestselling, award nominated writers,people who are at the top of their
(23:37):
game with huge audiences and sometimes.
A lot of them say yes and they giveus writing prompts because they know
exactly what we're going through.
'cause we're, we are all writersand they know that some days
you need a writing prompt.
Some of the people that send us promptsare writing teachers and they send us.
(23:57):
Exercises that they'vetaken from their classes.
Some of them are writing teachersand don't send us that kinda stuff.
They just send us a littlethought that they have.
Some of them are just bestsellingaward-winning authors who send us
really thoughtful sparks from their ownfiles, from something in their head.
Here without further ado, arethe, some of the names of the
(24:19):
bestselling Nebula Award-winning.
Hugo Award winning, BestAmerican Short Story collected.
Bram Stoker, nominated Edgar winning.
And other, all other kinds of accoladesthat these writers have who are
giving us writing prompts this year.
And this is only some of them.
There are more than this.
(24:40):
So first of all, we have
P. Djeli Clark.
Mary Robinette.
Kowal.
John Wiswell.
Lori Osland.
Kim Coleman Foote, Sasha Brown.
RSA.
Garcia.
Jennifer Hudak.
Tim Wagoner.
Rachel Bolton.
Julia.
Elliot, Kai Lovelace, AngelaSylvaine, Rich Larson.
(25:01):
FE Choe, Emma Burnett, PatriciaA. Jackson, Allegra Hyde and more.
So some of those writers,you will know their names.
You may have read some of theirstuff, some of them you won't.
But if you go looking for them, andI'll certainly have information about
each of them with each of the prompts.
And you'll see that the, these areserious writers who are who are doing.
(25:21):
The thing.
So it's really fun every year to get apeek inside their brains and see what kind
of things they come up with to prompt us.
Last year I did a 15th anniversaryversion of the challenge where I created
a sort of curriculum for you to followthrough the months, and you can do it.
Yourself, through the monthor throughout the year.
(25:42):
And that's still available.
It's on the site as the storya Day Challenge handbook.
And it takes you in week one fromwriting prompts to get you to your desk.
And they're relatively easy to follow intoweek two, which is about the craft of the
storytelling into week three, which isweird and wonderful short story formats
and so on through the month and scenarios.
(26:02):
I think in week four.
And then week five we mopup with with a bunch of.
Odd and revisited type of prompts, andyou can get that and you can follow
through that and have it available toyou on your own schedule at any time.
If you come over to story aday.org/handbook that's available
to you forever as far as foreverexists in this digital world.
(26:23):
But this year I went back to inviting.
Guests to give us prompts.
So the course is less of a journeythrough the skills of writing and more
of a, Hey, what are we gonna get today?
So I'm alternating the prompt betweenones that are a little, easier to absorb.
And then at the weekends, I'm usingthe ones which I'm placing the ones
(26:45):
which take a little more thoughtand I'm trying to alternate between
heavy prompts and throwaway prompts.
Not, throwaways.
Sounds derogatory, but I'm, the lighterprompts, which are just easier for
you to, either they're restrictivein terms of word count or use these
words in your story, and they'rejust like, oh my goodness, I have
no idea what I'm gonna do with this.
Let me write.
And the other ones, which are a littlemore, Ooh, that's really interesting.
(27:07):
Let me think about that for a minute.
So I'm alternating those types of prompts.
So you can come to the challenge every dayif the prompt that I, that one of these
writers has sub, has submitted to us.
Doesn't spark your interest thatday, or it seems oh, I wanna
get my teeth into that one.
I'm gonna save it for June or July.
That's fine.
That's why I'm encouraging you to gatherstory sparks now so that you can use
(27:27):
them in conjunction with the prompts.
Or if the prompt doesn't strikeyou on a day, give it a few
minutes and work with it.
A lot of times people havelooked at prompts in the past
and gone, I hate this prompt.
I'm never gonna be able to write to this.
And then they write something whichreally surprises them and ends
up delighting them and being the.
Fa the favorite thing theywrote during the month.
So don't write off the promptsimmediately, but if you look at
(27:49):
one of the prompts and you're like,I don't wanna write to that one.
That's fine.
Write your own thing.
But there will always besomething at the site to prompt
you every day of the challenge.
And it will come fromone of these writers.
It'll come from other writers.
Some of them will come from me, I think.
But there's plenty of stuff there.
So that's what's coming up.
Some amazing writers who aresharing with us peek inside
(28:13):
their brain and sending you all.
Immense good energy andwriterly, varied us there.
Every email I've had from all of thesewriters has been so encouraging and
sending all their best wishes to everybodywho's taking part in the challenge.
So use that energy as well.
That's what I have for you.
I know this is a long episode, soI'm going to cut it there and I am.
(28:34):
So excited to have you with us during thechallenge or during the rest of the year.
I will be opening up again theSuperstars Group, which is our
inner circle that will be opening upright before the challenge starts.
And it's a great way to find yourcommunity and keep the momentum going for
the next six months or longer if you like.
But really to have somewhere togo every day of the challenge.
(28:54):
'cause we do run writing sprints on Zoom.
We have a private.
Text-based community where you can hop inand ask for support and advice or just,
celebrate or commiserate with people.
So that's all coming soon too.
So watch out.
There will be a lot ofstuff for me this month.
I know, but it's, trying to get youexcited, trying to get you writing.
May is an amazing month for just bucklingdown and doing all that writing that
(29:18):
you want to do in a concentrated space.
Get yourself some first drafts that you'reready for the rest of the year to draw on.
I've been doing that this year.
I've been trying to write more, write andcomplete and submit more stories myself.
And I found myself going back to storya day, drafts from last year and the
year before and the year before that.
Things that I maybe didn't work onstraight away, and I'm like, oh.
(29:40):
I could turn that into something.
And there were some things thatwere a hundred words that I've
expanded out now to be 4,000 wordstories that are out on submission.
So take a month, get all yourideas out, join us, make your own
rules, sign up for the challenge.
If you haven't already, throw a day.orgor you can go over to through a.org/signup
for a shorter version of that signupprocess, and I will be sending you.
(30:03):
Weekdays in April.
Little motivational emails with plansfor you to take part in, like the stuff
that I talked about in this podcast.
Ti tiny tasks for every day thatwill help you amass material.
Get ready for the challenge,get your head in the right
place and get excited about it.
Alright, that's it for this week.
Happy writing.
(30:24):
And sign up story day.org.
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