The November Daily Write-Along

4 ideas for getting ready to write for this month-long journey of inspiration and support.

Hi friends,

There are only four more days to go until the November Daily Write-Along, our monthlong writing commitment on TODAY YOU WILL WRITE, so today I’m sharing a few tips for getting ready and offering a bonus writing prompt for the week.

I planned this write-along back in March, inspired by how much I gained from writing a first draft of my debut novel during a self-made monthlong writing practice while on winter break eleven years ago. But now, in the wake of my mother’s passing, I need this month of writing encouragement as much as you might. (And thank you to so many who wrote to me regarding last week’s letter about my mom. I read every single word with admiration and gratefulness.)

What is the November Daily Write-Along?

Starting Wednesday, if you sign up as a paid subscriber, you’ll receive a daily writing prompt from me Monday through Friday, a note of writing encouragement, and a tidbit on craft from working writers for the entire month of November. I can’t wait to do this with you.

Why do this?

We worry our middles are boring, our endings don't land, and our openings lack momentum. Nevertheless, today we will write anyway.

I’m writing these daily love notes to you and to writing, to encourage us to keep going.

All of us are in a place of loss, ala “media vita in morte sumus” (Latin for "In the midst of life we are in death"). The scale of sorrow to joy tips this way and that all the time. And yet, we keep writing.

Writing Inspiration from Maggie Smith

Maggie Smith

began her project Keep Moving as daily tweets to herself in the midst of grief around her marriage but the project grew and grew. Have you read her memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful? I read it as soon as it came out, in a single night. Though often pitched as a narrative of a marriage ending, I admire how the book is a love letter to her children, her friendships, and to herself.

Something I underlined in her memoir about how a place brings forth memory, layered by even more memories:

Living in Ohio my whole life, in the heart of the heart, and living in the same house where we once lived together, is like living inside a repetitive poem—a pantoum, a villanelle, a ghazal. There are always words and lines repeating, carrying forward, insisting on themselves.

A Writing Invitation: Ghost Signs & Palimpsests

https://www.cosentino.com/usa/blog/ghost-signs-a-london-story/

Is there a place like that for you, in which you or your character encounters layers of memory, of various feelings, when present there? I’m thinking of palimpsests and ghost signs. Memories on top of memories, stories on top of stories, residing in the same location. If you feel inclined, try writing about some of them. Eight years ago I returned to the valley I grew up in and it was a shocker, all the memories I’d forgotten were renewed by highway exit signs, maple leaves changing in fall, and so much more. Maybe you have these memory sites, too? Today, if you feel inclined, try writing about some of them.

https://www.cosentino.com/usa/blog/ghost-signs-a-london-story/

Four ideas for getting ready to write in November (and throughout the year):

1. Say yes, I’ll do it: articulating your commitment is the biggest, hardest, and most important step. Articulating that you will do it, and celebrating that articulation, is numero uno.

2. Plan your writing timeslot and writing space. Where will you write and when? I have a friend who would like to run every other day, but he plans it for “around 1 p.m.”, which is in the middle of his workday. Around 1 p.m. is truly not an available time for him—his boss calls, and people want documents from him via email. He misses runs b/c that time is realistically not an available time for him. I mention this to say: plan your writing time for when you truly can be available.

   It doesn’t have to be the same time and place every day. But perhaps before Wednesday, make a daily plan on a calendar and put it on your schedule, as an appointment with yourself. So when an invitation comes up you can say “I wish I could but I’m writing at that time,” or when work calls and asks if you have time for that 8 a.m. meeting you can say, “Sorry, that time is booked.”

3. Make yourself unavailable in other ways, too. Download Freedom, the app that blocks you from distractions for the amount of time you set. Turn off your phone for an hour, or whatever else amount of time you can commit to writing.

4. Plan how you will treat yourself after each writing session. You might be thinking: “Every day I celebrate?” Yes. Every. Single. Day. Celebrate your daily accomplishments with a walk with a friend, ice cream, a cheesy movie, a bath, a sports game, a TikTok session following the Kelce/Swift love story, or whatever else turns off your thinking brain and helps you laugh and find ease, so that you will be even happier to get back to writing the next day.

If you’d like to join us for the November Daily Write-Along, you can sign up as a paid subscriber here:

LOVE love LOVE love,

TS

P.S. If a paid subscription isn’t an option for you right now, you could share the newsletter with a friend. Three referrals gets you one month free. (Twenty-five gets you a full year.)