If you’ve read this substack for any length of time, you know my love-love-addiction-weaning-readdiction to TikTok.
As a learner and self-proclaimed curator, I love the instant virtual connection over TikTok over all things charcuterie table business (Lauren-LoverBoards), Japanese-style cooking and dining (Jaymin), and the cutest junk journaling journey (Megan - Millie Paper Co), but I am a self-proclaimed lurker who watches instead of making progress in my next draft. (Please comment below that I’m NOT alone in this, LOL.)
And with June coming up, it seemed the perfect time to start, as I love a clean 30-day countdown AND June started on a Monday (Magical timeline for a prolific procrastiplanner such as myself.)
So for the past five days — Monday through Friday — I went live on TikTok every single morning at 8 AM.
As a published author and working mom and wife, who is currently creeping into the weeds of a cozy mystery I’m hoping to self-publish later this year, I decided to use TikTok Live as a writing sprint tool. Very behind-the-scenes, very “let me just show up and get words on the page.”
I’ve thought for a long time that I’d love to see an author write their book live, in real time, to show what goes into it to make the often years-long process more transparent—so why not me?
At the same time, I have writing blocks on my schedule that often get pushed for work emails, home tasks, or the lack of clarity in that I wouldn’t know exactly what I was going to write during the time—so this seemed like a solve for me.
So did it work?
Short answer: 1000% yes
Long answer: Keep reading 😜
And follow the journey: https://www.tiktok.com/@brionniwrites
Day One: Chaos in the making
To preface this, I should have practiced more. There’s a practice function and I DID do enough on Sunday afternoon to download the app, but the processor on my personal computer couldn’t handle the speeds at once and kept turning me sideways, cutting off my background. So I’d have to use my phone for the lives.
I logged on ten minutes early on Monday and ran right into problems. I wasn’t approved to pin post, selected the wrong countdown application for the sprints, and spent more time fiddling than writing.
It took me the first twenty minutes just to sort that out, which meant I only got one real writing sprint in. Not exactly the power session I’d envisioned. But I showed up, and that counted for something. (302 words)
Day Two: Calling in reinforcements
I told my sister my goal, and she said she’d pop in and keep me company. It’d be literally keeping me company as I was often the only one in the room. She was already walking in the mornings, so she’d pop on, drop a like, and answer my engagement question. She didn’t stay the whole time, which feels like the typical sessions, where people filter in and out as they scroll through Lives.
My advice: find a friend to pop in, at least at first. One, to make your commentary less void-like and encourage you to hold the time and ACTUALLY press the Live button. (898 words)
Days Three and Four: Finding a system
I found an app called Classroom Screen that I really love for setting up the session visually — I’ll share a screenshot below, and it helped me to focus the engagement. The main challenge was that it was so large, I had to turn my phone sideways to capture everything, which my sister succinctly informed me negated the experience and encouraged swiping.
I also made a TikTok video right after going live that day. I was already warmed up, I had a sixty-second window, and I just went for it without overthinking it. Which, by the way, is kind of the whole lesson here — nobody really cares. Nobody is really watching. Just post the thing.
(717 and 657 words, respectively)
Day Five: Confidence and Community
I’ll be honest that I didn’t want to join the live this morning.
It was my husband birthday and all the celebrations were celebrating, so I was super tired.
My main phone died, so I had to charge it while I did a school run and hope there was enough battery for an hour-long live.
I accidently closed the window, so had to redo my Classroom Screen Page on the fly.
I mixed up the days (Not checking my handy-dandy notebook) and thought I was writing about the mom again, when I should have started on the victim. Luckily, I had a lot of prior notes I cannibalized and refined for this version and had a lot of insights into the backstory of the victim, which will be helpful to this book AND the writing workshop I’m scheduled to teach on June 17th.
Despite all this, I joined anyway.
And it went well.
I had over 287 people join the live, and for the first time, I got organic questions from someone I didn’t know. A stranger. Someone who just... found me, and it was cool (Sqeee!!!). I so enjoyed interacting with them, demonstrating my process, and then seeing how it could help them. I made all the adjustments in real time and didn’t go for perfect, just done. (677 words)
Here’s what the week actually produced:
In five days of morning writing sprints — Monday through Friday — I wrote 3,251 words. All character development for my cozy mystery. I went in with a focused goal, I knew what I was working on, and I got it done, which is a vast difference from several weeks to months of mainly thinking about the writing.
What’s also helping is that I’m reading/listening to Jessica Brody’s Fast Drafting Book, Page One to Done, where I’m just working on one chunk at a time, instead of launching into and getting stuck on Chapter 1 for the umpteenth time.
My five takeaways if you’re thinking about doing this (and you should):
Expect the first session to be bumpy. The tech stuff takes longer than you think.
Bring someone with you — a friend, a sister, a fellow writer. Even one person helps.
Get prepped before you go live. Have your prompt, your timer, and your setup ready.
Make a quick video right after, while you’re still in the zone. Don’t overthink it.
No one is really watching. Most times, I was in the room by myself, so if I messed up, I just did it again.
Overall: 5 Days down. 25 to go!
I’m going to keep going. It’ll be interesting as more things come on my plate (doctor’s appointments, ACTUALLY drafting the book and not just my favorite research rabbit hole) and endeavoring to still press Go Live and do it anyway.
If you want to follow along, come find me on TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@brionniwrites)— I’m there most mornings, writing in public.
Question: Would you ever go live?
Happy Reading and Writing -
Bri
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