Introducing…Strides!
I'm creating a little place for us to build momentum on our dream projects. Why? Because I need accountability, too.
Hello friends! So here we are in 2024: Same big dreams, same old us, but another calendar year.
Remember a few months back when I wrote about the project management template I built to help launch the next thing I'm working on? It turns out it was the most popular edition of The Windfall Dispatch in 2023.
I spent some time thinking about why the post resonated with so many of you—and whether it had any lessons for 2024. Sure, it can be fun to peek behind the curtain of art as it is made. And we all love a productivity hack, even if deep down we know that what works for one writer doesn't always work for another. Nonetheless, the feedback I got suggests that readers appreciated seeing the exact steps I was taking to make my next project a reality. And that they hope to apply the template to their dream projects, too, in a way that works for them.
So, I thought, why not build a little community around making our dreams a reality? And that's how I came up with Strides, a little side project of The Windfall Dispatch. (And yes, the title "strides" came to me while on a walk.)
Strides is a free weekly newsletter for people with projects. That's it, nothing fancy. I’m guessing it will appeal mostly to writers, but if you can imagine a project, it has a place at Strides. I want to cheer on your renovation projects, your training plans, your small business plans, the progress you’re making on your novel or your screenplay or book proposal or documentary film—or any other dream you might have. If you're a person with a project, Strides is for you.
Each Saturday at 9 a.m. PT, I'll be sending out a short email to prompt subscribers to share updates on their dream projects. In the comments, I'll post an update on my personal project, using the formula that has worked well in my own project management templates in recent years. I'll outline 1) the progress I made or did not make each week, 2) reflect on what worked and what didn't, and 3) outline goals for the next week. Here’s the guiding philosophy, if you’re interested.
Strides is free. Just sign up for a free membership and I'll mark you as "paid" in the system. It’s a backend tweak so that comments are viewable to subscribers only.
Some of you may want to pay for Strides as an accountability incentive for yourself. If so, I'll gratefully accept payment as a tip for facilitating a private space to cheer each other on. But I'm not trying to monetize this endeavor, I’m trying to “communitize” it. (Sorry, not sorry, Substack.)
Truthfully, I’m launching Strides because I need it. I would probably write my Saturday morning journal updates no matter what, even if Strides weren’t around. But it's lonely in that document! It's much more fun to share updates on my new project with others. We all need cheerleaders, right?! So why not share some of my weekly updates with like-minded striders who will be sharing their progress, too? How fun to cheer each other along!
The template I use is something I concocted in 2019 based largely on the SMART goal approach. As many of you may know, SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. The approach isn’t perfect—SMART goals can be a little too pragmatic for art. But they can be useful for identifying the smaller steps you need to take to achieve bigger, long-term aspirations, especially if you have a deadline. You could also think of this approach as a garden journal that tracks what you planted and where, how you tended it, when it bloomed—and what you hope emerges from the ground next. (I've never actually kept a garden journal, but I like the idea.) I did keep a progress journal while writing and revising Windfall. It was invaluable for identifying what was working, what wasn't working, what still needed to be done…and what I hoped would bloom.
For fun, I thought I'd share a few of my entries from 2021, when I was writing and revising Windfall. It might be helpful to see how the process worked for me on a real project, and how it might work if you're interested in joining me over at Strides.
Here's one of the first entries, written shortly after I signed my book contract and began work on Windfall. At the time, I had a messy draft completed. This entry is from the week of the Jan. 6 insurgent attack on the U.S. Capitol. And yes, sometimes the entries are...unintentionally funny.
REFLECTION/PROGRESS NOTES
This week I decided to check into a hotel and spend some quiet time re-reading my manuscript draft so far, to get a sense for what is missing, what needs work and where I need more. It was not a great day to do it, but I had already lined it up before the news broke in Washington about the hordes at the Capitol. As a result, I spent more time on Twitter, etc., than I would have had there not been an active coup attempt. I buckled down to it as much as I could. I was hoping to renew my overall sense of the narrative arc, and I think it worked.
One pattern that emerged while revisiting my 2021 progress journal is that, often, I'd figure out what wasn't working and come up with a solution by writing about why I thought it wasn't working. Magic, no? I think many of you will discover similar patterns in your own progress journals. I’m excited to see what you share over at Strides!
Here's one of my favorite entries, from Jan. 31, 2021, when I documented how I finally figured out how to begin Chapter 3 of Windfall. It was a chapter that gave me a lot of trouble in early drafts, and I was relieved to solve the creative problem.
REFLECTION/PROGRESS NOTES
I want to get this down, so I can remember how I arrived at something difficult. I've had so much trouble with these two chapters...but basically, this week was just about doing some hard thinking about how to make them work. (By hard I almost mean hard-headed, unrelenting, not giving myself permission to get distracted or to work on other things until I figured it out.) Part of the problem is I feel so distant from the material, which I mostly wrote in 2019, and which is about 2013. Add to it that general sense of feeling stuck here in the Groundhog Day cycle of the pandemic.
Yet...the chapters need to convey the excitement of being in a new place for the first time and seeing it with new eyes seven years ago. Even if I am feeling stuck right now.
So I used my morning pages practice to really push myself to think about what needs to be there, how to write the scenes. And basically, I realized that I needed to 1) transport myself so I could transport readers, and 2) Give myself the pleasure of being on that first journey again, at a time (pandemic) when it is impossible to have such a journey. I need to recall what it was like to see it with new eyes so I can share that with readers, even as I weave in all that I have learned in the six years since that first trip.
I went back and looked at my notes – again – and re-read old Instagram posts. I looked at emails I'd saved from that day in the oil fields, to verify the time of day, etc. And there it was in a logistical email with directions, my opening: An email where I asked whether I needed to bring closed-toe shoes. That, I realized, was the fish-out-of-water place where I needed to start.
What I like about that example is that I paused to document a success. I wanted to be able to look back at a time when I had to work diligently to figure something out because future me would need a reminder. Now, I look back on it and smile. It taught me a lesson: Sometimes the only thing that works is to keep at it until you break through.
Finally, here's a reminder from April 21, 2021. We can make plans and update our Google Doc templates and strive away at our dreams, but some fundamental aspects of our lives and our personalities never really change, do they?
REFLECTION/PROGRESS NOTES
I'm behind on everything right now. Writing back, reaching out, applying for things...you name it, I'm not finished with it.
Sounds like a big, messy and creative life, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t have it any other way!
Your fellow strider,
Erika
THE NEWS
All the links…
Novelist Matt Bell has an even more specific way of tackling his writing goals in 2024. Maybe he should join Strides, hah!
After years holding down a corporate job for health insurance, novelist Eden Robbins found a better way to make ends meet and do her art: She’s a crossing guard a few hours a day during the school year.
Runner and writer Sarah Lavender Smith on realizing her 2024 goals would need to dig deeper. “I actually feel close to “whole,” meaning satisfied and loved…In the face of politics, wartime conflict, and environmental change that make me feel hopeless and powerless, I want to do what I can to spread love and support others.”
I'm excited to be a part of Strides, and thank you for linking to my newsletter!
I signed up for Strides. Can't decide if I should use it to help me keep myself on-point with applying for grants for the small nonprofit I run (the Sunnyside Shower Project) or if I want to (gulp) start working on a book proposal, which I keep saying I want to do again but am afraid to do. ;-) Either way, thanks for launching this.