Writers, I Want You To Write Down 100 Stories From Your Life - Here's Why
Writers, I Want You To Write Down 100 Stories From Your Life - Here's Why
Blogging lesson 5 of 150
A few years ago I read a blog post asking me to write down 100 goals of mine.
It was insanely difficult.
I did the darn thing, though, and weirdly enough, without looking at my 100 goals ever again, I set out to accomplish many of them unconsciously.
Among them were things like:
Go to Europe
Start a successful Youtube channel
Go to the Philippines
Get 1,000 email subscribers
Invest in the stock market
Pay off all my student loans
Have a movie room in my house
And many more.
I’m a big fan of challenges. I love 30 day writing challenges, for instance. I love conquering lofty goals.
Writing down 100 of the best stories from your life is a lofty goal.
It’s difficult. You’re going to have to stretch yourself.
But like all big challenges, it’ll be more than worth it when you accomplish your goal.
Why Writing Down 100 Stories From Your Life Is Useful
Well, it’s useful because:
You need to know yourself as a writer (VERY important).
You need original stories for original blog posts.
It can be fun to ruminate about our lives.
How To Write Down 100 Stories
Okay, here’s a few helpful hints before we get into the meat and potatoes..
Boil your stories down to a sentence as you’re writing these down.
Don’t think too hard.
These stories can be happy, sad, painful, joy-inducing, tough, whimsical, etc.
Great.
Now that we got that out of the way, here’s my step-by-step process for writing down 100 stories from our lives.
Walk through the timeline of your life. Start at your first memories and slowly walk forward from there.
What stories jump out at you? Don’t filter anything. What do you remember?
Judge them on a scale of 1-10 in importance. Write down anything that scores a 5 or better. Do the first part mentally before writing the stories down.
Break your life down by decades. Childhood, teenage years, 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s. 60’s, etc.
Divide 100 by the number of decades you’ve lived. Try to write down that many stories from each decade.
Okay, perfect.
If you’re stuck, here’s a few ideas to consider.
Use This When You’re Stuck
These can be useful places to look if you’re stuck.
Love—Did you fall in love in your life? When?
Big impact in hindsight—What events had a big impact on you in hindsight? For instance, my sister giving me a journal in 2014 led to me becoming a full-time writer.
Winning—When did you win big in your life? Did you win a spelling bee? A state championship? The heart of your crush?
Adversity—When was life tough for you? How did you get out of it?
Important Books—One book I read in 2013 changed the trajectory of my life.
Mistakes—Mistakes are gold mines for useful lessons.
Money—When did you make a lot of—or lose a lot of—money?
How To Find Your Best Ideas To Write About
Okay, phew!
We wrote down 100 stories.
It was difficult.
There’s one last thing I want you to do and then I’ll shut the f*ck up.
One, I want you to grade each story on a scale of 1-10 in terms of how much it means to you.
Second, I want you to grade each story on a scale of 1-10 in terms of how relatable you think it is for wider audiences.
Great. Add both those numbers up, pick the top 20, and write about them first.
How do we write about them?
What’s the next step?
More information on that is coming this Friday. ;)
Welcome to my newsletter, 150 days to blogging mastery. This is the fifth of 150 lessons, which we’ll publish every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday until the end of the year. Please subscribe on Substack.
For the next month, we’ll be talking about how to generate great writing ideas.
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