Hello, and welcome (or welcome back)!
If you signed up for this a while ago and it’s slipped to the back of your mind, this is your gentle reminder of what you signed up for…and what we’re about to begin.
On 2 January, we start the Free 30-Day Author Challenge!
Every morning, you’ll receive a short video from me—just like the one above—walking you through the building blocks of your book. Over the course of the month, we’ll put together a clear, usable blueprint so that when you sit down to write in 2026, you’re not staring at a blank page wondering what comes next; you’ll know exactly what you’re doing, and why.
Before we get there, I want to make sure you know who I am and how this works.
I’m Dr. Shelly Sayer Lorts. I’m a literary historian, writer, and book coach, and I’ve been helping people write books and screenplays for around 15 years. Many of the writers I work with are already good writers. They can write beautiful sentences and they amazing stories to tell.
But where they get stuck is structure: where to begin, what to introduce when, how to build tension, how to shape an emotional arc that actually carries a reader through.
That’s my focus.
I work with story structure and story architecture. And that’s exactly what we’ll be working on together throughout January.
How the challenge works
Each day you’ll get:
a short video lesson (usually five to ten minutes…I’ll try!)
a clear concept to think about
a small piece of homework that should take around 20–30 minutes
It’s designed to fit into real life, even as you’re getting back into work after the holidays.
But it is a challenge.
The payoff is that by the end of the 30 days, you’ll have a solid blueprint for your book or screenplay, rather than a loose pile of ideas.
And that means that you can hit the ground running and actually get your book written in 2026.
Your first piece of homework: a Commonplace Book
Before we officially start, I want you to do one small thing.
I want you to get yourself a small notebook and start carrying it with you. Nothing fancy. It can be a pocket-sized notebook, something inexpensive, something you like the feel of. This will become your Commonplace Book.
Commonplace Books have been around for centuries. Writers, scholars, philosophers, and artists used them as a single place to collect thoughts, quotations, overheard dialogue, observations, questions, and half-formed ideas.
They were a living storehouse of thinking. They were active and used regularly.
For me, a Commonplace Book is a creative tool. I use it to catch ideas before they disappear: a line of dialogue I overhear, an image that sticks with me, a sudden realisation about a story I’m working on.
Once you start carrying one, something interesting happens: your creativity responds. You’ve given it a place to land, and it starts showing up more often.
Over the next few days, I want you to:
get a notebook
carry it with you
write things down as they occur to you, without judging them (scribbles are fine! Just open the creativity tap!)
If you already know the book or screenplay you want to work on, think of this notebook as dedicated to that project. Start jotting down ideas, questions, fragments, and possibilities. We’ll work with them properly once the challenge begins.
Do this with a friend
One other thing I want to strongly encourage: don’t do this alone if you don’t have to.
Every time I’ve run this challenge, the people who get the most out of it are the ones who do it with someone else.
Having a friend alongside you makes it more enjoyable, more accountable, and more alive. You have someone to talk to, to bounce ideas off, and to keep you moving on the days when motivation dips.
So if you can, forward this email to a friend and invite them to join you.
They can sign up for free, just like you did. You’ll still have ways to interact with me and with others in the challenge, but having one person doing it alongside you makes a surprising difference.
One last thing (optional, but encouraged)
If you already have an idea for the book or screenplay you want to work on:
reply to this email and tell me what it is.
Tell me what you’ve started, what you’re excited about, or what you’re nervous about.
This challenge isn’t automated. I do everything live, and I prep and record lessons just a day or two before they go live…so it’s bespoke to you.
I read replies, and I adjust what I teach based on who’s in the room. The more I know about what you’re working on, the more useful these 30 days will be for you.
That’s it for now.
Two small things to do before we begin:
get yourself a commonplace book
invite a friend to join you
We start on 2 January, but I’ll pop into your inbox on the first with a little tour of the platform and how to get the most out it.
I’m really glad you’re here! Now…hit REPLY! (Let’s be friends!)
Shelly
