Enrichment Activities: A 30-Day Writing Challenge for Authors by DeAnna Knippling

Introduction

Fiction writer?

Feeling like you should be getting some writing done but somehow not getting anywhere?

What to write something but don’t have the brain to decide what?

Want to try something new?

First, let me recommend that you take it easy on yourself. Everyone has rough patches.

Second, have I got some ideas for you!

If you’re spinning your wheels and want someone to give you the equivalent of a small craft project for fiction writing, you’ve found the right place.

Here are 30 different story starts that delve deeper than the standard story prompt ideas, 30 different journal entry prompts to mine for content, 30 different fiction techniques to study and add to your toolbox, and lots, lots more.

As a ten-year ghostwriting freelancer, I have been disciplining myself to stay on track and focused for quite some time. I’ve learned some tricks on the business side, and I’m a positive fiend for studying new techniques.

Get yourself writing again and expand your horizons with 30 days of bite-sized ten-minute projects designed to help you change your mindset from perfectionist to productive!

The Setup

What you’re about to read is a series of tips and tricks that were written during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. I was trying to help keep a group of writer friends amused and sane (as sane as they ever were) during lockdown.

I had been on a conference call with several other writers who were suddenly trying to work from home, or who were on furlough, or who had been laid off, and most of them complained of having extra time on their hands and no motivation to write.

The motivation to write isn’t something you can find. You have to make it.

What I’ve found, over ten-plus years of ghostwriting, is that motivation comes from a constantly-shifting combination of deadlines, bills, threats, guilt trips, bribery, meditation, and rewards.

And, of course, dreams.

Finding a pure sense ofa pure sense of motivation is like a quest for the Holy Grail. It’s noble, but you’re probably not gonna find it. Face it, most writers just aren’t that pure of heart.

But if we can’t find motivation, we can still lower the barriers to getting started writing.

Here’s what I’ve found that works:

• Work on changing from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset (see Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, by Carol Dweck).
• Make a goal to fail rapidly…but never the same way twice.
• Make a goal to stop pre-rejecting your work before anyone can see it.
• Work in small chunks. Tell yourself you’re only going to work on something for ten minutes. Longer if you feel like it…but no more than ten minutes if you don’t.
• Break tasks down into teeny tiny chunks. I actually explain how to do this later, because there’s a tendency for teeny tiny chunks to grow into massive projects filled with doom and failure.
• Have a plan for when you get stuck or depressed.

I’ll cover these things throughout the days as we go.

What’s Included

What you will see in this book is a set of small tasks, one for each day, in several different categories:

• Business Tips. Small, ten-minute tasks to help you edge toward becoming a published, professional writer on the business side.
• Short Study Project. Small, ten-minute projects to help you study different writing techniques, focused on the openings of published stories.
• Journal Topic. A one-page journal topic to help you sort out your thoughts in an area that you can use for fiction.
• Short Writing Prompt. Write three sentences of a story opening.
• Staying Human. Small tasks to help you survive a work-from-home environment.
• Fun with Research. Weird things to research for possible fiction ideas.

I highly recommend doing them in order; not every item is tied to something else down the line, but a lot of them are!

Day 1

Business Tip

Back up your data! And please name every new version of a file with a different version number or date. Hint: a file named “final” never ends up final!

Short Study Project

Type in the first page of The Princess Bride by William S. Goldman (which starts with, “It’s still my favorite book in all the world”). Highlight every element that describes the narrator, either directly or indirectly. (Use a free sample!)

Journal Topic

Write one page or less about something you were irrationally embarrassed about when you were ten or so. No one needs to see your journals but you!

Short Writing Topic

Write three sentences about how a character named Billy/Billie, aged ten, was embarrassed about that same thing. (You can write more if you’re inspired!)

Staying Human

Please make sure you’re getting enough water! Before you sit down at your computer, please bring something to drink with you.

Fun with Research

Look up Salvator Fabris, one of the early fencing masters, and see his technique being used in modern times.