Creative on Purpose Live - Julie Duffy

seatbelt on and your tray in the upright position. So it looks like we're having a little trouble getting connected to LinkedIn. We're going to hope that that will sort itself out. It happens from time to time. But welcome everyone to another episode of Creative on Purpose Live. You can start living your legacy and by visiting creativeonpurpose.com. And let's get going with the difference only you can make by joining the Better Decision Mini Course. 3 simple questions to help you bust through indecisiveness, overwhelm, and confusion. Please remember that this broadcast is also an iTunes podcast. Check it out and leave a 5-star review. 30 seconds of your generosity helps spread the goodness delivered by my guests. Let's get to today's show. Welcome to Creative on Purpose Live. These conversations are about flying higher and the difference only you can make. Ready to live your legacy? Endeavor better. It's time to be creative on purpose. Are you ready? Let's go. I'm your host, Scott Perry, author of Onward and Difference Maker Coach at Akimbo Workshops and Creative on Purpose. Don't die with the difference only you can make still inside. Visit creativeonpurpose.com to learn how to start living your legacy today. This season, we're drawing insight and inspiration from guests who are successfully embracing uncertainty, navigating adversity, and making things better, doing work that matters. Let's meet today's guest, Julie Duffy. Welcome to the broadcast. Please tell our viewers who you are, what you're up to these days, and where they can go to learn more.

Hi, thanks for having me, Scott. I am Julie Duffy. I'm the host and founder of the Story a Day Challenge. Started off as Story a Day May in 2010 and has kept going. We do it in May and September now. Now there's a sort of year-round support has grown up around that. But the idea of Story a Day is exactly what you talk about. And when I saw, you know, the title of your podcast, I was like, yes, the whole idea that we are creative beings, but that we kind of squash that down because we've got to make a living. We grow up and people tell us not to have big dreams. And, and so that idea is so stifling. And I wanted to— well, I wanted to challenge myself to write more because I realized at a certain point I wasn't writing anymore. And, uh, so I challenged myself. Since I couldn't seem to get to the end of a single story, I decided that it would make sense to challenge myself to write a story a day for a month. And knowing myself a little bit by that time, I knew it wouldn't work if I just promised it to myself. I had to make it public. So I made it public and I told a few friends and they told a few friends and 97 people signed up that first year. And I was like, oh, I guess we're doing this thing then. So we started off challenging. I challenge everyone to start and finish a story every day in May. And I tell them, you can make your own rules up. You can decide what every day means. It doesn't have to be every, every day. Whatever inspires you to push yourself and is a little bit more than you think you could possibly do. Anything that will lower the bar and get you actually creating is what I'm going for. So that's the idea of the challenge, is that you're going to make this huge insane promise to yourself and you're just going to find out how much more you can do than you think you can if you stop worrying about it.

Yeah, I love that. What's a How do you define story? What's—

it's—

I'm, I'm curious because I've coached in one of Seth Godin's workshops called the Story Skills Workshop, and I— we talk a lot about telling our story, our hero's journey at Creative on Purpose. How do you define story, and, and how do you help people lean into telling, uh, better stories in a story a day?

The The definition of story, I usually end up with, there has to be a character who is struggling with something or trying to achieve something. There's usually an obstacle and then something has changed at some point during the story. That's really vague, but there's the sense, and with short stories, it's, it's really fun because it's not like writing a memoir or a novel where you've got kind of this defined narrative that you have to follow. There are short stories that are purely lists, you know, a shopping list. For one, there's a great shopping list story called To Do by Jennifer Egan, which starts off just reading like a shopping list, and by the end you realize there's stuff happening for this character, there's stuff that's potentially going to happen to somebody else, and that's a story, right? So there's— I feel like for a story you need a character some sense of movement. And then people often ask about how to finish, especially short stories. I think it's harder to figure out where to finish a short story than some other formats. Poetry as well, but short stories, I usually say short stories are about one moment, one decision, one kind of like realization for a character in this moment in their life. Like, it's not about their whole life, it's just about this little slice of their life. And when the reader has enough information to either see what the change is going to be, or to be able to think for themselves, oh, I think the character is going to do this— when you've talked about that one moment that, that you're writing about in this one short story, and you've either— the character's either made a decision, rejected the decision, or you've given the reader enough information to see what they're going to do, and you can leave them standing on the precipice. Are they going to jump? Are they not going to jump? I don't know, but you've probably told the reader enough that they can decide for themselves what they want the character to do, and then they're thinking about your story after they've finished reading it. I think that's an excellent short story. So in terms of the challenge, like, I'm challenging people to write a story a day, every day. They are— short stories are generally somewhere in the region of, you know, 2,000 words, 4,000 words, something like that. And then you get down to flash fiction, which is about 1,000 or 500. And then you get down to drabbles, which are 100 words. And you get down to nanofiction, which you can fit in on a— in a tweet. So there's all kinds of ways that I encourage people to write stories during the month, because you're not going to be able to write a 2,000-word story every day. You're just not. I mean, there's not time, there's not brainpower to do that with a brand new set of characters every day. Um, so some days it's absolutely fine to say to people, do a 6-word story, do a tweet, you know, just to have have an idea, play with an idea, be creative, and give us a little sense of movement, I think you've succeeded.

I love that. I love how you talked about, um, it's hard sometimes to know how to end a story because we had a question from Eve, uh, who said that starting is the hard part. And this is true, I find, um, for a lot of people, whether it's the story that's being told through copy on their website or the story that they tell to, you know, share the transformation on offer with their brand. Um, so any tips for Eve and others that, that find that starting is the hard part?

Yeah, there are two things that are hard about starting. Um, one is just like, how do you write a compelling first line? And my— that's probably the easiest one to answer because I would almost always— excuse me— unless you have a brilliant idea for a first line that your whole article is gonna grow out of, I would say Don't be afraid to write the first line last. Once you've written the rest of the piece or the story or the whatever, once you've written the rest of it, you kind of know what it wants to do, what it wants to be, what its shape is. So then you get to go in and write the first line, which is gonna sort of hint at everything and lay everything out, and people are going to think you're brilliant because you started with this line and you fulfilled all the promises of that first line. And, and you know, you wrote it last, it's fine. This is fine. So If that's what's hanging you up, if you're staring at a blank sheet of paper and you're going, I need to get this first line perfect, then don't worry about it. Just write some nonsense or write your thoughts about what you want to achieve. And there's other tricks in there. I used to work at a newspaper and British non-high-quality newspapers are big on puns and jokes and stuff like that. So this guy would just sit and write all the— if he was writing a story about a dog, he would just write all the jokes he could think about, all the puns he could think about dogs right at the top of the article. So you could do that kind of thing too. You could think, I'm going to write a piece about my product and the transformation it offers. You could just write a few key phrases at the top of the page just so you don't have a blank page saying, don't forget to put these things in there, right? So if it's the first line that's stopping you, there's lots of ways you can get around that. If it's the whole, I can't even sit down at my desk because this is just overwhelming, then it's kind of actually going to be kind of some of the same stuff. You just brain dump, you know, promise yourself. I mean, Anne Lamott is a brilliant woman. She talks about the, you know, I don't know how G-rated you are here, but the terrible first draft, let's say. And it's a really easy phrase to hear. It's a really hard thing to let yourself do. And everybody has to do it at every stage of their writing career with every project. That never goes away. It's always hard. And allowing yourself to say, this is gonna be imperfect, this is just the first draft, I'm gonna give myself enough time, I think is important. You know, like, I'm a terrible procrastinator, but I've learned that giving yourself a fake deadline is really helpful because if you've got the space to write a terrible draft and then revise it once you see all the ideas on the page. And I say page because I like to write on paper, but you know, whatever your version of that is. The first version, promise yourself you're not going to show it to anyone. Promise yourself that you will be able to dig the gold out of the slag once it's there, you'll be able to do this because you'll be able to look at it and you'll be able to see this is what's important to me. So mindset is just huge. It's just, you just have to get started. And that's not awfully helpful, but brain dumping and lowering the bar and promising yourself that it's okay if it's terrible and it's okay. Nobody else ever has to see this. Now you have to, you as your first reader deserve some respect. Like you want to see some good stuff in there, but you will. Like you, you'll get there if you just let it all out. Don't try, you know, some people write short, some people write long, whatever your natural inclination is, just let that happen and then you can fix it.

Yeah, I'm smiling in part because I'm holding a block that was sent to me by Seth Godin, um, as part of his release of The Practice, which is based on The Creative Workshop, which I'm head coaching in right now. And, um, it says, no such thing as writer's block. And then on another side, it says, trust yourself. And he talks about in the workshop, he talks about, you know, writer's block is actually a story that has only been around, you know, for a couple, 100, 200 years or so. It's, I think Mary Shelley's, Shelley's husband is the one that kind of, um, came up with this idea of, of the tortured artist and this idea of writer's block. What's so wonderful about communities like the one that you are cultivating and Writing in Community and, and the Story Skills Workshop, um, and the Akiva Workshop family is they set up these communities of practice where people get to turn pro in the craft of writing. So, you know, truckers don't have trucker's block and plumbers don't have plumber's block. They just, it's their job and they show up and they do their job. It doesn't matter if they just had a fight with their spouse or they're not feeling well that day. And when you decide that you're going to be a writer, that, that's the end of the discussion. Writers write, and it doesn't matter if they got nothing that day. They write bad writing until the good writing comes. Um, it's the way that we've learned how to do anything meaningful. You didn't learn how to talk by saying, oh, I'm going to wait until I'm not blocked, and I'm going to wait until I can do it perfectly. You just start babbling until the babbles turn into syllables, turn into words, turn into phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and so on and so forth. So it's, it's just Starts with a simple decision. I'm a writer. Writers write. That's all you have to do.

You say that, and I agree. I agree with everything you just said. And I'm a massive fan of Seth. The most recent sort of string of the podcast, his podcast, building up to the release of The Practice, I was just hanging on every word because I was like, yeah, yeah, this is yes. But writer's block, And I love the fact that you referred to her as, um, him as Mary Shelley's husband, by the way, like that, um, which is how he should always be referred to in my opinion. Um, but there is a resistance, um, that is real, and it's, you know, it's— I agreed, like, the first most powerful thing you can do is say, I'm a writer, and I— and writers write. Why is that so hard for us? Why, like, in the absence of a contract, a deadline, a boss, why is it so hard for people to give themselves permission to be creative on purpose, if I may?

Is that a question?

That is a question for you. Yeah, let's throw it back at you.

So this, this, this points right to Steven Pressfield's and his work, uh, The War of Art, and this idea of the resistance. So I was asking you about story at the beginning, like, how do you define it? I mean, we are narrative creatures. Human beings have always made sense of themselves, of their circumstances, of the world, of each other through narrative. And, and the narrative in our head is often the one that is making us complicit in getting in our own way. I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy enough. Uh, I, I don't have anything intelligent to say. Nobody will like this. People will, will hate it and I'll be thrown out of the tribe. These are all, as you said, those are very true. That's just biology and evolution working against you. You can't do anything about it. We, you, uh, you can say there's no such thing as writer's block, but That doesn't make it disappear. The resistance, the fear, the anxiety of putting yourself out there, standing up to be seen, speaking up to be heard, will always be there. What I suggest is, what happens if instead of making that the enemy, you make it your friend? What if it becomes a compass? Because the only reason you're feeling fear and anxiety is because you're about to do something worth doing, or that you want to do. And yes, there is a risk that it might be— people might not like it. The greater risk is that people will just ignore it. Let's face it, it's a noisy world out there, but that doesn't have to mean that you don't do it. It actually could be the compass that's telling you, hey, here's something that looks interesting, we should probably head in that direction. Seth Godin talks about dancing with the fear, dancing with the resistance, which is a great metaphor I think, because you can't kill it. Resistance will, will pop up every single day. I feel it every time I turn on this podcast, every time I sit down to write my blog, every time I write an email, and anytime I'm doing something where I am putting myself out there, I feel it too. And that's how I know that I'm on the right path.

And I think that there's— I have this theory that, um, we grew up in a world where art had been commodified, you know, and mass-marketed. And, you know, there was— you had to get signed by a record label, or you had to get your show on a TV station, or you had to get your book published by one of these people. You had to be given permission to be creative. And we just sort of absorbed that growing up. I suspect, and I hope, that my kids' generation won't feel that so much. Mine aren't out of school yet, and like, being in school is one thing because everyone's always encouraging you to be creative. But I think— I hope it'll be easier for their generation, having grown up with the internet, where they've been freer to just make stuff and share stuff and remix stuff and, and, um, be makers in all kinds of ways. So I'm hoping that like our flavor of, uh, resistance based on 'I'm not good enough' might go extinct. I don't know, but I, I'm hoping that there— at least one slice of it might go away just with the evolution of, of how we communicate.

Yeah, I, I like— I, I, you know, as a guitar teacher, I work with a lot of young people, and I think, I think you're right. I think younger generations are less inclined to just buy the false bill of goods that we got served. And without— there were no other alternatives. I mean, I don't know about you, but when I grew up, you just did what you were told. It didn't matter which adult was telling you, you just, you just did it because they had authority and you did not.

Um, yeah, random street— random adult on the street could tell you to stop doing whatever you were doing.

You'd be like, the flip side is to remember that you're also, you know, just because, um, I mean, here's I loved what you were saying about the gatekeepers. You know, there were historically, especially in my generation, you know, if you wanted to get published, you had to get an agent, you had to get a publisher. If you wanted to be on TV, you had to get an agent, you had to work, go through a network. And now in the digital age, you know, Instagram gives you a platform to have a TV show. YouTube gives you— lets you have a movie. There's blogs to be a news— a journalist. There's KDP to— you can be— become an author at the push of a button. And because everybody can, everybody does, which means that there's a lot out there. Instead of 3 networks, there's now 3 million networks. Um, and so the, the, the, the great benefit that you're pointing to is you can become a writer, you can become a published author, but you're not entitled to an audience. And that leads to a very different kind of dilemma. I don't know if you have any thoughts on, on that, or if that's part of the work that you do at Story a Day.

Um, yeah, it's, it's always really been true that you were never entitled to an audience, even if you got picked, if you were, you know, picked up by Random House or put on NBC or whatever, you weren't entitled to an audience. It still had to be good, you know. People could, could still— there's a whole other, uh, world that comes if you decide to go pro. Then there's— it's a whole different job, um, if you are just writing. Yeah, I find that my, my work at StoryADate often is about dismantling the idea that if you want to be creative, you have to have it as part of your plan to go pro and to get published and to make your living at this. Now, sure, it'd be nice to make your living at something you enjoy, but, um, A, that's so many steps down the road. If you put your creative work away since you were in high school and now you're just coming back to it, then you're, you're some distance probably from being ready to do that, even if you actually want that lifestyle. Like, I love to sing, um, I come from a musical family. We used to go to— we used to go to jazz clubs, and me and my dad would go to jazz clubs together, and I would get up and sing, he would drum, he would sing. And, you know, it was— there were professional musicians who were gigging, but they would let us amateurs come and sit in. And I used to, when I was younger, I would say to my dad, why didn't you do this, you know, professionally? You love it so much. And he was like, yeah, but I didn't— that wasn't a lifestyle that would have worked for me. He's like, I wanted the family and the you know, I needed a job for that. I needed a job that could keep me at home. So that was at the time I was like, yeah, loser old man. But, you know, as I matured and, you know, that thing about Mark Twain where you're how your father gets smarter the older you get.

Yeah.

I was like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's, yeah. He, he still loves music and goes out and gigs at the weekends, but, or on Tuesday afternoons or whatever, but it's still not something that he wanted to take that step into doing professionally because that changes your relationship to the thing that you love. So to get back to your question, a lot of stuff that I do at Story a Day is getting people to give themselves permission to just write, just be creative, just do it for yourself. You become so much more you, the you that you are inside, deep down, the you, the best version of yourself, when you are expressing that part of yourself which is so important to you. And there's no requirement that you go pro or that you publish at all. I, I try and build in ways for people to get feedback that isn't, um, reliant on sending it out, sending a story out to a journal and being rejected because the timing wasn't right, or they just published something that you just like it, or maybe it wasn't quite right for this one of many millions of journals, you know, and that, that's part of the process if you want to build your audience and do this in a way, you know, at a certain stage it's a decision you make, but it's not right for everyone. So I do try and build in things like feedback groups and ways for people to share in a very controlled and careful environment with other people who are at a similar stage and you know, just looking for that constructive criticism, like, no, you're not wasting your time. Yes, you can write a story. Yes, you should be writing. You're— you know, I think if anyone is pursuing their creativity in any, any sort of meaning, with any meaningful investment of time, I think they should stop asking themselves if they are that thing, you know. Are— am I, am I a musician? Am I a writer? Yeah, you are. Just like, stop wasting time on that question, um, which is easier said than done.

So yeah, so Penny is tuning in and saying that students need learning environments that support them experiencing who they are. And what I'm hearing in what you're saying about your community and, and the, the space that you create is very similar to what is— we're doing over at Akimbo, which is creating safe spaces where people can explore the edges of their understanding and abilities, but also brave spaces where they can earn skill and confidence so that they can develop craft. And it doesn't work— like, I love what you're saying about it doesn't— it's not required that you turn pro and try to do it for a living. I, I do have to say that I made a living as a musician for 30 years and kept, kept a marriage together and raised two, two boys and homeschooled them all the way through high school. So it is possible. I will also say it was really, really, really hard. And the only reason I did it was because I couldn't do anything else. Every time I I tried to quit, I always went back to doing, doing music full-time. Um, but that's, uh, I, I really appreciate what you were saying about your dad because I do think when, when people come up to me, when young people come up and say, hey, I'd like to do what you did, I'd like to be able to have a life as a musician, I'd like to turn pro, you know, I, I ask them, are you prepared to spend 80% of your time doing everything but play music, because 80% of the time you're booking gigs, promoting gigs, traveling to gigs, setting up for gigs, breaking down from gigs, traveling back home from gigs. Um, you know, that, that couple of hours that you get to spend on stage, um, is preceded by at least 8 hours of things that have nothing to do with music. If you can do that go for it. If you can't do that, maybe it's better for that to just be your passion and your hobby and something you do on the side. You'll probably enjoy it and appreciate it more. I also really loved what you said about audience. What I was hearing is like starting with yourself. Like, the hardest person to write for really is yourself. And the thing is, the more you, the more you write and refine your voice and, and you know, start writing about your struggles and solving your own problem, the clearer your audience will become because it's often people that share a lot of the same aspirations and challenges that you're revealing through your writing. So I just think it's, uh, I love that approach of kind of letting the writer write and then following the path, um, to where it goes. Well, Julie, it's been Really, really great having this conversation with you and learning more about Story a Day. I, I have this one final question that I always end the broadcast with, which is, this is a broadcast dedicated to people that want to fly higher, the difference only they can make, and make a difference doing work that matters. What's one tip or piece of advice that you haven't shared already that would help our listeners, um, fly higher in an endeavor that they're invested in, where they seek to make a difference?

I should have had something pat prepared for this, shouldn't I? But I don't. So let me think. Honesty, um, is, is, you know, authenticity and honesty are words that are easy to throw around, but a lot of the fear that comes with being creative and with pushing those edges um, just has to be faced so that you can stop doing the things that everyone's told you you need to do and do the thing, like you say, that, that only you can do without expectation of anything other than the satisfaction and self-respect you get from doing the thing that matters to you. And from that, I really believe your best work is going to come, your best life is going to come. Um, there's no substitute for just being you, and be— you're the only one in all of history that's you, who has your experiences and, and your amalgam of, of, of influences and values. And, uh, you know, that's, that's really, really valuable. And we get better by experiencing each other authentically. So yeah, just be you, be you, and, and be unapologetically you.

You said something earlier that was just kind of reflected in what you just said. I'd like to just amplify it and have you share any additional insights. We talked about like you're not entitled to the outcomes of your work. I mean, fame, fortune, that's just, that's beyond your control. But what you were pointing to was, you know, you, you are in control of the way that you approach the work. And, and the reward, the real reward is in the effort, is in the daily discipline of creating a story a day. That's the reward. So just one last reflection, if you have one, on how do people maintain that discipline of showing up every day to do a story a day or to do whatever their creative endeavor is?

Yeah, it's community. I'm not going to pretend that it's easy or that just making the decision that I'm a writer, I'm a creative person, that's— you can make that decision in isolation, and it all sounds great when you're writing in your journal and you're making that decision and you're like, hey, morning, you know. And then, you know, there's people outside that door who need me, and there's people emailing me, and, you know, we are in community whether we want to be or not, no matter how much of an introvert or a loner you are. So if you want to do something creative, the only way— and I've been working with authors since 1998, I've run Story a Day since 2010— the only way that I have seen people succeed at this, myself included, is to surround yourself with people who are also striving to do something which is outside the mainstream of life. You know, majority culture doesn't, you know, have everyone sit down and create stuff in a dedicated way. So the only way that seen people succeed is to have some number of people around them who are also striving for that, who they check in with regularly and who they trust. And you don't need to be friends in any other way. You don't need to like find friends in your daily life. You find an online group, you find a group of writers, creatives, and just check in with them and let them show you the struggles. Let them pick you up when you're struggling. Just share the journey with people, and it is astonishing to me as a card-carrying introvert, but this is absolutely the only path I've seen that works.

Yeah, I totally agree. Community is so important. Routines and relationships. Love it. Well, thanks everyone for tuning in. Julie and I really appreciate you lending us some of your valuable time and attention, and we hope today's broadcast motivates you to lean into an endeavor that matters with greater curiosity and courage. You can learn more about Julie Duffy and the great work that she's doing at storyaday.com. Of course, it's always great to see you at creativeonpurpose.com as well. Now, take the insight and inspiration from this conversation and keep flying higher in the difference only you can make. Julie Duffy, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and time with us today.

Thank you, Scott Perry.