Julie Duffy's Blog, page 75
June 17, 2020
[Write On Wednesday] Take A Second Look
June is rewrite and re-examine month at StoryADay. So today’s prompt reflects that.
Now that you’ve had a chance to recover from the frenzy of writing in May, here’s a prompt that help you to take a second look at one of those stories and improve it. Perhaps there is one you liked, but you know isn’t quite working yet.
It’s one from the archives, and I think you’ll like it.
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June 6, 2020
170 – Take A Break
Sometimes it’s as important to take an effective break from our writing as it is to keep putting words on the page. Find out how and why, in this episode.
LINKS
DIYMFA Summit of Awesomeness: https://members.diymfa.com/writer-igniter-summit/
Ready to write today, not “some day”?
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June 2, 2020
A StoryADay Statement on This Moment in Time
The USA is in turmoil.
As writers, our job is to examine the human condition. Whether we are writing fluffy and frothy tales or deep, sociological works, our business is the business of truth.
The truth, in this country, is that the words “Black Lives Matter” need to be shouted until it becomes as obvious to everyone as it is to most of us.
It shouldn’t need to be said.
But it does need to be said.
I don’t often invite debate about anything that could be controversial or on which well-meaning people could reasonably take different sides…and that hasn’t changed. This is not a controversial statement, as far as I’m concerned. Black Lives Matter. Black voices need to be amplified.
StoryADay’s official position (by which, I mean my position, and my hope for this community) is that all are welcome here, and our hands are extended to anyone who has been marginalized. (You can read the StoryADay Community Standards documents here.)
I’ll be working to put in place some scholarships for future courses, for people of color, people who are suffering because of COVID-19, and people from other historically-marginalized groups.
In the meantime, I’d invite you to consider donating to a bail fund, to help protestors who are being financially impacted and risking health consequences during this pandemic, because they are taking a stand in public.
I’d also encourage you to use your awesome writing skills and empathy to communicate with your elected officials and ask them what they are doing about police body cameras, discriminatory policies, and economic inequality (particularly the types enhanced by historical discrimination) and to let them know you expect them to do better.
I can’t tell you what to do. I can tell you that I hope StoryADay is a place of inclusion and support for all well-meaning people.
I also invite you to tell ME what you need, or what I’m doing that might be harmful.
As writers, we have magical powers: the power to create visions of the world as we would like it to be. Those visions shape people’s actions. Use your gifts wisely.
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June 1, 2020
Lesson Plans by Michele Reisinger
About the Story
A novice teacher facing burn-out must learn the most valuable lessons aren’t necessarily the ones we teach.
About the Author
Michele E. Reisinger lives with her family near Philadelphia and teaches English at a New Jersey High School. Her short fiction has been featured online at Light and Dark Magazine, Prometheus Dreaming, 34th Parallel, The Mighty Line, and Dreamers Creative Writing, as well as the 2019 anthology Stories That need to be told. She loves to read stories that make her think and wonder and learn. Lesson Plans was inspired by StoryADay’s list prompt and her conversation with a burned-out colleague who questioned the value of careers in education. Michele credits StoryADay and its awesome community of fellow writers with encouraging her along every step of her writing journey. You can find more of her writing at My Name Was Supposed To Be Elizabeth Ann (mereisinger.com).
Part of
Read More
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May 31, 2020
SWAGr for June 2020
Welcome to the Serious Writers’ Accountability Group!
Post your goals for this month and let us know how you got on with last month’s goals.
Leave a comment below telling us how you got on last month, and what you plan to do next month, then check back in on the first of each month, to see how everyone’s doing.
(It doesn’t have to be fiction. Feel free to use this group to push you in whatever creative direction you need.)
Did you live up to your commitment from last month? Don’t remember what you promised to do? Check out the comments from last month.
And don’t forget to celebrate with/encourage your fellow SWAGr-ers on their progress!
Download your SWAGr Tracking Sheet now, to keep track of your commitments this month
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Examples of Goals Set By SWAGr-ers in previous months
Finish first draft of story and write 3 articles for my school paper. – CourtneyWrite on seven days this month – ClareExtend my reading and to read with a ‘writers eye’- Wendywrite 10,000 words – Mary Lou
So, what will you accomplish this month? Leave your comment below (use the drop-down option to subscribe to the comments and receive lovely, encouraging notifications from fellow StADa SWAGr-ers!)
(Next check-in, 1st of the month. Tell your friends!)
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May 30, 2020
Day 31 – The End is Just The Beginning
Today I’m taking you right back to the beginning…the very first StoryADay May prompt, from May 1, 2010.
The Prompt
Today, go to the Newest Articles section of the front page of Wikipedia.
Choose one. Scan the titles, stop at the first one that grabs you and click. Don’t second-guess yourself.Read the article. As you read, look for some detail or phrase or idea that strikes you.Write your story. Don’t try to retell the story as it was told in the article. Focus on the idea or detail that caught your imagination. Turn that into a story.
GO!
What Now?
Today is a particularly important day…you’ve spent the past month focusing on your writing and your life as a writer.
I couldn’t be more proud of you!
I encourage you to download the post-challenge worksheet attached to this page and either print it out or simply use the question and answer them in your journal.
What worked?
What was a sure-fire way to torpedo your writing day?
What surprised you?
WRITE IT ALL DOWN
While you’re in the throes of the challenge it’s easy to think you’ll never forget all the lessons you’re learning.
You will.
So save the lessons, put them somewhere safe, then take the rest of the day off. Maybe tomorrow too. You deserve it.
Celebrate Your Success
And don’t forget to download your Certificate of Completion. Print it out, fill in your name, and post a picture of yourself on social media with the hashtag #StoryADayMay
Read A Book, Support An Indie
This year’s StoryADay May official bookseller is Reads & Company, a privately-owned indie bookseller in Pennsylvania. Any purchase from the site this month supports Reads & Co.
Special thanks to all the writers who provided such brilliant and inspiring prompts for our 10th anniversary. Do consider going back to your favorite prompt and buying a copy of one fo the authors’ books, and leaving them a review (the ultimate ‘thank you’!)
Leave a comment and let us know how you used the prompt, and how you’re celebrating!
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May 29, 2020
Day 30 – An Old Favorite
Today it’s another post from the archives, one of my favourites. And this time you get a peek into the kind of content the Superstars group gets throughout the challenge– perhaps you’ll be able to join us next time!
The Prompt
Write A Story As A Series of Letters/Tweets/Memos
Julie’s Notes
If you’ve been coming here for a while, you’re going to recognize this. It’s one of my favorites.
It is a challenge to you to write a story in a letter, a series of letters, a series of tweets, some sort of epistolary story. Maybe you get replies from different people. You can have found objects, documents, all of which add it add up to a story.
Now, if you really get into this, you might not finish this today. It might become a bigger project, or you may do what somebody, the first year that we, we did story a day and write a series of tweets that got progressively creepier and creepier as this person was calling for help via Twitter, which back in 2010 was pretty revolutionary.
It could be on both sides of the conversation.It could have multiple voices.It could have a single voice where we have to really try and figure out what’s going on.
There’s a story I often cite by Neil Gaiman called “Orange”, which is simply a series of answers to a police interrogation by a teenage girl. We don’t hear the questions, we just get her answers. And it starts off fairly mundane. And of course, being Neil Gaiman, it gets a little strange.
There’s something about the direct voice in letter writing or journal writing or in that kind of “direct to camera” conversation that really allows us to get inside a character’s head and get very emotionally involved in the story.
So that’s your prompt for today, and this is just a quick little prompt, a quick little video to give you that. I hope you’re still writing.
E is for Engage
Throughout this month I’ve talked about the WRITER Code, my framework for building a writing life you can love. In Week 1 we focused on Write; Week 2 was about Refining your process; Week 3 brought you prompts designed to Improve parts of your writing craft. Last week we focused on Triumph – celebrating every little success, every day. This week is all about Engaging with the wider writing community.
We’ve got this weekend left to go and then we will be out of here, as far as the challenge goes. So what comes next?
I encourage you to remember that on the first of every month, throughout the year, we have our SWAGr group, our Serious Writers’ Accountability Group where you can:
Pledge what you’re going to do next month‘Fess up to what you failed to do last month or managed to do last month. You can celebrate successes.Tell us about things that you’ve, you’ve submitted.Tell us about things that you have had rejected because that’s a success too. It means you’re getting out there.
I highly encourage you to check in, on the first of every month.
SIGN UP FOR SWAGr REMINDERS NOW
Accountability is really important along with building the behaviors into your routine that encourage you to be successful. It’s not something I’m trying to invent. This is something that successful people do. They prioritize the thing that’s important to them.
They create the habits that will support thatThey commit to it on paperThey commit to it in front of other people.
There are concrete actions you can take to reinforce your commitment to help you avoid the willpower drain, help you not make excuses, help you build the habits into your life to support the goals, and support the things that really matter to you. I’m going to be talking a lot about behavior over the next few months and trying to really find ways to help us all knuckle down to our writing.
It’s such a self confidence thing, with writing. It’s not like working out. You just get up and drag yourself to the gym at six and you’re done. For writers, we need to drag ourselves to the gym, build the equipment from a few scraps lying around, and then invent the exercises too!
Inventing worlds is a huge endeavor. I[t’s very easy to walk away from it and say, I’m too tired. I’m too crap, I’m not good enough.
All of these, these things that we can put in our own way.
I’m going to be working to come up with some ways to help us all build habits and accountability into our writing lives. I hope you’ll stick around StoryADay in the coming months to share in that.
So quick prompt, long ramble. Sorry about that!
Write me a series of letters, and most of all keep writing.
What did you write today and how are you engaging with the wider writing community?
Read A Book, Support An Indie
This year’s StoryADay May official bookseller is Reads & Company, a privately-owned indie bookseller in Pennsylvania. Any purchase from the site this month supports Reads & Co.
Leave a comment and let us know how you used the prompt, and how you’re celebrating!
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May 28, 2020
Day 29 – A Secret Message
Today I dug into the StoryADay archives for a favorite prompt and came up with this one. Those of you who’ve been around for a while may remember it, but I’m betting whatever you come up with for it this year will be COMPLETELY different from how you used it last time.
Today’s prompt was, er, prompted by a brief literary feud.
A TV critic took issue with the latest episodes of the BBC’s Sherlock, complaining that our hero was more James Bond than Conan Doyle’s Holmes. The episode’s writer wrote a response in verse, then the critic wrote back with his own poem. BUT, in the last couple of lines of the poem, he pointed out that he had embedded a hidden message in his words (the second letter of the first word of every line spelled it out).
I was so tickled that I’m stealing the idea (which he stole from Conan Doyle, so I don’t feel bad).
THE PROMPT
Write a story with a hidden message
TIPS
You could make the first letter of every sentence spell out a message.You could make the first/second/third/last word of every sentence add up to a secret message.You should probably start by writing out your secret message and then figuring out the rest of the words in your story, so it fits!This will force you to break all the normal rules of your process of storytelling. Don’t be afraid. Be bold. At the very least you’ll learn something about your process!
Today would be a great day to practice engaging with other writers by sharing the story you wrote, here in the comments, even if you’re not thrilled wiht it. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how people respond.
Will you share your story today?
Read A Book, Support An Indie
This year’s StoryADay May official bookseller is Reads & Company, a privately-owned indie bookseller in Pennsylvania. Any purchase from the site this month supports Reads & Co.
Leave a comment and let us know how you used the prompt, and how you’re celebrating!
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May 27, 2020
Day 28 – Jonathan Maberry Sees the Homeless
Write a human-experience short story about a homeless person during the Covid-19 outbreak.
The Author
JONATHAN MABERRY is a New York Times best-selling and five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author, anthology editor, comic book writer, magazine feature writer, playwright, content creator, and writing teacher/lecturer. He is the creator of V-Wars and the Joe Ledger series.
Read A Book, Support An Indie
This year’s StoryADay May official bookseller is Reads & Company, a privately-owned indie bookseller in Pennsylvania. Any purchase from the site this month supports Reads & Co.
Jonathan Maberry, Deep Silence
Leave a comment and let us know how you used the prompt, and how you’re celebrating!
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May 26, 2020
Day 27 – Matty Dalrymple Stares At Clouds
Wake With Clouds
The Author
Matty Dalrymple writes, podcasts, speaks, and consults on the writing craft and the publishing voyage as The Indy Author
, and is a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors. You can connect with The Indy Author via Facebook and Twitter.
Matty is also the author of the Lizzy Ballard Thrillers Rock Paper Scissors, Snakes and Ladders, and The Iron Ring; the Ann Kinnear Suspense Novels The Sense of Death and The Sense of Reckoning; and the Ann Kinnear Suspense Shorts, including Close These Eyes and Write in Water, and the new writing handbook, Taking the Short Tack:
Creating Income and Connecting with Readers Using Short Fiction which she co-authored with Mark Leslie Lefebvre.
Read A Book, Support An Indie
This year’s StoryADay May official bookseller is Reads & Company, a privately-owned indie bookseller in Pennsylvania. Any purchase from the site this month supports Reads & Co.
Matty Dalrymple, The SEnse of Death
Leave a comment and let us know how you used the prompt, and how you’re celebrating!
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