Imagine the force required to blast the universe into being. That’s the strength needed to create your own story.

Most of us are better at noticing our own flaws than we are at noticing our strengths. Yet celebrating what we’re good at allows us to make use of those strengths, play to them, plan around them.

Now that you’ve had almost six weeks of daily writing, I wonder if you can begin to name what you’re good at?

Once you acknowledge and own your creative strengths and own them, you can find your way more clearly.

Could you look at the list of strengths here, and consider how strong that quality is for you? Use a scale of 1 to 5 (with 1 being ‘this is not in my repertoire’ and 5 being ‘I’m excellent at this!’)
– Inspiration – great at coming up with new ideas
– Connection – making connections with your peers, offering and asking for help
– Intuition – in tune with your gut instincts
– Focus – really able to tune out the rest of the world and concentrate on the words
– Resilience – getting up again when an idea doesn’t work out
– Patience – sticking with an idea, sticking with yourself
– Courage – working with an idea in spite of obstacles, writing in spite of fear
– Flexibility – moving from one idea or form to another, trying a different approach
– Confidence – being able to back yourself!
– Clarity – knowing clearly what you want or what is at the heart of your writing
– Determination – getting back on that horse!
– Stillness – being able to sit with a project over a long period
– Calm – staying steady in the face of ‘these two imposters… praise and criticism’
– Willingness – being willing to try
– Playfulness – throwing a bit of silly in to see where it leads
– Curiosity – that power of asking ‘what if’?
– Contemplation – the power of wondering and considering
– Compassion/Empathy – being able to step into someone else’s shoes

Are there any others that I’ve missed?

What are your top three strengths? Write them in your journal. Or write them on a post-it note and stick it near your writing space.

Then, consider what you’ve written and discovered about your own creative voice over these last weeks. Can you notice what you are good at on the page? Have you discovered that you are great at funny lines, or at describing nature, or at listening to people speak and recording it on the page? Are you clear that, once started, you have a real ability to simply keep writing? Add those things to the list of strengths.

Say it out loud: ‘I’m good at describing place. I am excellent at creating dialogue. I have a knack for generating lots of first draft words and scenes…’

And when you begin your writing day, take a moment – just a little breath – to remind yourself of your strengths. Like activating a muscle group before a workout, it will keep you supported in your writing.

Your prompt for today:

Everything was different on the other side…..