How I published 1 story every Monday for 3 years
Even though I had never written before.
What did I just get myself into?
My arm shot across the table out for my phone knocking over my dinner. My eyes scanned the texts. I slumped in my chair. I wasn’t dreaming.
I just promised 5 of my friends I’d send them a fiction story in their inbox on Monday morning.
But I had never written before. I didn’t have a story idea to write. I had university classes and exams to study for. I’m an engineer, not a writer: what would people think?
Even worse, what the heck do I write about? The blank page was an ocean of endless possibilities.
It asked one question: what do you want to say? The blinking cursor danced on the screen like a sail catching wind urging me to cast off.
I cut the rope and rode into the ocean.
How I started Writing:
I stared at the blank page for a while. Nothing got written. This boat went nowhere for days.
Like a serial procrastinator, I wasted time on YouTube by watching videos.
All the movie scenes and short films mocked me. They were a horizon I could never reach. Until I realized I was thinking stories had to be 500-page novels or 200-page screenplays. These 30 sec short films were defying that belief. They were simple stories, the same as the 2-hour movies.
Storytelling was 2 things: Transformation + Causation.
Instead of worrying about writing the next Harry Potter, I focused on simpler ideas. A person starts with this mindset in the beginning, and they change by the end. At first, I sailed the inspiration wave as it pushed me forward in whichever direction.
I rode it until the wave withered to a whisp. I knew I couldn’t rely on inspiration alone, and I needed to ignite my own creativity engine to push me forward if I was going to beat the dying light. It didn’t matter where I went so long as I was moving.
I developed a handful of creativity games to generate story ideas and my favorite is: 3 Nouns + 1 Genre.
I asked friends to give me 3 Nouns + 1 Genre, and I’d craft a story based on that. I got crazy ideas from friends.
- Tragedy: — A homeless man named Paco- A doorknob named Carl. — An ant named Doris
- Crime Thriller: Raspberry Bush- Loaf of Bread- Polar Bear
- Comedy- Teacher- Dog- His pen
These games fueled my engine for weeks on end. I was zooming across the ocean toward land and laughing at the sun as I passed it by.
Right before the deadline, on February 17th, 2020. I published my first ever fiction story. And these games gave me plenty to store in the tank for future journeys.
But the coming weeks weren’t a smooth journey.
But it’s not good enough yet.
There was a haunting voice in my head whispering “it’s not good enough yet.” Despite the approaching deadline I kept rewriting. If I was going to finish, I needed more than a creative engine.
These 3 Ideas got me from a muddling fool who spent more time thinking to a writer who’s never missed a deadline:
- Build in Buffer Time to account for Life.
- Have a Hard Deadline to Publish.
- Get an Accountability Buddy.
Build in Buffer Time to account for Life:
When I started writing, I was a full-time engineering student with a part-time job.
Within 3 weeks, I had a thermodynamics exam, a dynamics exam, a project report, and a lab report. I knew I couldn’t write weekly stories. When I saw an incoming storm, I wrote multiple shorter stories and scheduled them to cover weeks ahead.
This allowed me to take a break and focus on other demanding areas of life while holding true to my weekly publishing cadence.
Have a Hard Deadline to Publish:
Deadlines were islands dotting the horizon.
Seeing them on the horizon pushed me to get to the end. The first three stories I wrote were horrible and I didn’t finish until the night before the deadline. I knew no matter how frustrated I was with the story, I had to publish on Monday morning. Deadlines were reminders that even if this leg of the journey was rough, there’s a chance to start anew.
Deadlines forced me to publish and focus on improving the next week.
Get an Accountability Buddy:
The writer tucked away in a wooden cabin sitting at a desk in front of a pane-glass window looking at a forest with a half-drunk whisky on his desk and the smog of cigarette smoke hovering around him is a fantasy. I wasn’t going to do well if I wrote alone. I grabbed my phone and texted my friends that I’d email them the story every Monday.
An accountability buddy can be a writing partner, but they can also be someone else waiting for your finished story.
In the 1930s, Tolkien had been writing the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit series in secret. Fantasy novels weren’t popular for adult reading. It was set aside for children’s entertainment. Tolkien wrote it in silence until he let his friend C.S Lewis read a copy of The Hobbit.
Lewis loved it and encouraged him to publish.
The Lord of the Rings became one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.
The Hobbit sold 100 million copies within a decade.
Accountability partners boost your chances of success.
But Who cares about my Stories?
Why write if no one reads? The rejection emails from competitions filled my inbox. I was ready to quit.
Until one day, I received a text from a friend who’s been reading my work from the start.
He said my stories reminded him of Philip K. Dick’s work. My friend explained how my stories would distort reality and ask thought-provoking questions similar to PKD’s work. Some of my stories didn’t follow traditional story structures but instead were explorations of questions and premises.
I read Philip K Dick’s work, and, in his work, I found a kindred spirit, and, in my friend’s comment, I found a reason to continue.
I don’t need a million voices of encouragement. I need one. One person who says they cherished my writing and found it valuable is enough.
It takes courage to share your story:
You don’t know who will resonate with your story or how.
When I first shared my journey writing weekly stories, others heard it felt inspired to get back into fiction writing. It’s what led me to make this:
An Email Course to help Fiction Writers get to their 1st Draft in 7 days.
I’ve taken 3 years’ worth of weekly fiction writing experience and distilled it into 7 days.
- Day 1: 5 Creativity Games to Spark Ideas: Become an Infinite Idea Generator
- Day 2: The Best Kept Writing Secret: An easy way to write good stories.
- Day 3: 3 Key Ideas which Make/Break your Story: Understanding the Creativity Sandbox
- Day 4: 3 Mistakes to avoid Snoozefest Storytelling: Avoid these at all costs.
- Day 5: 3 Tips for Flow State Writing: 1 Easy Trick to Kick Start Writing.
- Day 6: The Secret Story Killer: 99% of stories die because of this.
- Day 7: 3 Stages of Editing: The Final 1% of Writing a Good Story.
Each day has action items at the bottom to help you practice what’s taught each day. This is how I wrote and published weekly short stories and screenplays throughout college and working full-time.
The processes and advice in this course are meant for short story and screenwriters who want to get into fiction writing but have never written before.
It’s a free course to sign-up and get your voice heard, check it out below.
