Happy Monday, and welcome to Day 25!
I hope you had a really great weekend. I saw that a lot of you used it to catch up, and it honestly made me so happy. I started getting comments and emails from people I hadn’t seen in a while.
And if you’re one of the people who fell a few days behind and still chose to come back: Congratulations.
That takes real fortitude. You’ve had a moment where the brain wants to say, “I failed, so what’s the point?”…and you overrode that voice.
I’m going to say it again because I want it stuck in your brains: this is what makes an author. Not being clever or knowing exactly what you’re doing, but being stubborn enough to keep going.
If you’re watching Day 25 and you’re actually on Day 20, or Day 14, or you’re binging the whole thing later on: more power to you. Keep going. You can still email me as you catch up. I may not reply as fast as I did during the live window because I’ll be full steam inside the Academy with the new semester, but I will support you as much as I can.
Now, a couple quick things to clear up before we get into today’s lesson.
A clarification from a recent reflection thread
We had a reflection question a few days ago about honesty:
If your Hero went back to the ordinary world after the ordeal, would the story be honest?
The answer is actually no.
(It was a bit of a trick question, but it’s important to think about.)
By the time they’ve been through the ordeal, they are not the same person. They’ve seen too much. Something has broken and something has changed. If they tried to go back and live as if nothing happened, it wouldn’t be honest, because it would deny the transformation.
That’s the point I wanted your author brain to noodle on. So take another think about that and ensure that your Hero really has changed throughout your story.
Why your blueprint ends at resurrection
You may have noticed something in your blueprint grid: resurrection is the final column.
If you’ve done any outside research, you’ve probably seen that the Hero’s Journey continues beyond that. There are steps after resurrection.
But there’s a reason I don’t have you plot those last steps in the blueprint.
Because this is where people get stuck.
A lot of writers get addicted to plotting. They plan and plan and plan…and the planning starts to feel like progress, but it’s actually a safer substitute for writing.
Perfectionism wears a very convincing costume.
We will address the last steps, but I don’t want you to plot them. I’ve found that the best way to work with them is to plot to the resurrection, then to start writing the story from the beginning.
After the resurrection, just keep writing instead of plotting…because after you’ve actually written the rest of the book, this part might change. It’s fluid, because you learn things about your story as you write it.
So, instead of plotting out those last steps, we’re starting—from today—to get you over the hurdle of plotting forever…and into the headspace of a productive writer.
We’re going to bring together all of the work that you’ve done, iron out the wrinkles, and do some exercises designed to get you writing your book and building momentum to get your first draft finished.
And that brings us to today.
The “reward”
One of you clocked something important: we didn’t formally fill out “reward.”
That was on purpose.
The reward works so closely with the ordeal that it often lives inside it—or immediately after it—and it can look very different depending on your genre.
Sometimes it’s an actual reward (they get something they thought they wanted… briefly).
Sometimes it’s clarity (a veil lifts, a truth lands, a realisation snaps into focus).
Sometimes it’s nothing but the smallest flicker of direction after devastation.
So today, just hold this gently in your mind: after the ordeal, is there a moment of clarity or consequence that pushes them forward?
If yes, you have a reward. If not, that’s fine too.
Today’s shift: we stop polishing the plan and we start throwing clay
Here’s the big reason today is different:
You are not meant to spend your life plotting a book. You are meant to write one.
I teach first drafts like this: you can’t shape clay if you don’t have any clay on the wheel.
A first draft is not elegant. It’s messy. It’s awkward. It’s uneven. But it exists, which means you can mould it later.
(My fellow PhD students and I always repeated to each other: a finished thesis is a good thesis; a perfect thesis never exists.)
So today, we throw clay.
Your task today
Set a timer for 20 minutes.
And write the scene where your Hero is finally able to do the thing they could not do at the beginning of the story.
This is your resurrection moment.
It’s the moment we can see the transformation. It’s a distinct action or behaviour.
Examples:
The Princess Diaries: Mia stands up and gives the speech.
Finding Nemo: Marlin does the thing he couldn’t do before; he trusts, he releases, he lets Nemo try.
The Matrix: Neo stops the bullets.
Your job is not to write it perfectly. Your job is to write it without stopping.
A few rules:
do not edit as you go
do not backspace to fix typos
keep moving forward for the full 20 minutes
if you get stuck, write “I don’t know what happens next but…” and keep going
What to post in the comments
After your 20-minute freewrite, come back and tell me:
how it went (great / messy / surprising / hard / energising: all valid)
how many words you got in 20 minutes
And one important reminder: your Hero has already been transformed by this point. You’re writing a version of them after the journey has changed them.
Tomorrow we’re going to look at them before the transformation, and I want you to feel the contrast.
Reflection question
Here it is:
Where has planning felt safer than writing, and why?
If you don’t want to answer that publicly, write it in your journal, but do answer it. It’s going to unlock something.
Alright. Go write.
I’ll see you tomorrow.
Xx Shelly
