could you write every day in June?

With 30 fresh June days before us,

I return to your inbox with more creative constraints to try in your writing life.

10 more ideas for
30 days of writing

1

Write in the same location every day for 30 days

I recently committed to writing in a photo booth for 30 days in a row. Now, I’m turning the writing into a book.

One of the most profound things about writing in a photo booth for 30 consecutive days was how much more honest I was willing to get in the booth than I was in other locations where I usually journal. I realized that whenever I journal on my couch or at my desk or on my patio, places where I also work and hang out, I write with this slight subconscious restraint that comes from knowing that whatever feelings surface during my journaling are going to still be there once I return to that place in a different context.

With the photo booth, there was no other context. It was purely my writing space for 30 days.

When selecting a daily writing location, I recommend selecting a place you won’t be spending much time otherwise. See what happens when you physically separate your writing from the rest of life.

2

Take the same daily walk (rain or shine) for 30 days

Then write down 30 new things you notice every day.

3

Every day, write 30 sentences that begin with “I remember”

You could make the sentences really personal, à la Joe Brainard’s memoir of the same name, or write memories on a macrolevel, the way Georges Perec did in Je me souviens, documenting collective memories of a single culture.

4

30 days of morning pages

The concept of morning pages is best known from The Artist’s Way, which prescribes 12 weeks of daily writing first thing in the morning.

Try your own mini-version by committing to 30 days of stream-of-consciousness writing right when you get out of bed. (Or write from bed. You’re in charge here.)

5

Write about the same moment from 30 different POVs

This one is inspired from Georges Perec’s Life a User’s Manual, which is structured around a single moment in time: 8:00 p.m. on June 23, 1975. Pick one moment and write it from the point of view of 30 different characters.

6

30 days of ekphrasis

Ekphrastic writing is writing inspired by visual art. Select 30 pieces of art (art books from the library are a great companion here) and see what they conjure from your pen, or return to the same piece of visual art for 30 consecutive days.

If this constraint interests you, I highly recommend my friend Michael Mercurio’s ekphrastic writing workshop coming up in July!

7

Pull a tarot card every day for 30 days

and write about your findings. Maybe use a guidebook: this one is my very favorite.

8

Write 30 letters to the same person

Actually sending them is entirely up to you.

9

Write 30 postcards to different people

Bonus: make the walk to the mailbox part of your daily writing routine.

10

Write 30 of your protagonist’s memories

This one’s for the fiction writers in the crowd. I recently recommended this exercise to a writer who’s exploring a decades-long marriage in their novel: one standout memory for each year of the marriage.

Fellow fiction writers could easily augment any of the above exercises for fiction. Writing postcards from one character to another can be especially fun.

EVEN MORE WRITING IDEAS

WRITING + MAT PILATES!

I’m considering leading a Sunday morning class that combines Pilates-inspired movement with committed writing time. If this class idea interests you, respond to the survey to let me know what time best suits your Sunday mornings in July.

Here’s a movement playlist for all, particularly my fellow millennials whose abilities to predict meteorological phenomena based on minor aches and pains are becoming more accurate by the day.