People Are
Stories-in-Progress

As a head’s up, this online version of People Are Stories-in-Progress is more than 44,000 words long. That’s as long as some novels. 

There are some typos and errors in these web pages, which I’ve corrected in the eBook. I will eventually correct those errors here in the online version as well, but since there’s other stuff I’m excited to make, I’m not rushing that process. My goal is to complete this online update by September 2023. This banner will disappear when this page has been revised. 

(Please note: I didn’t make any major changes in the updated eBook—I only refined the wording slightly, so you’re still getting a very similar experience between the two versions.)

From each story, we’ll get to know some tools.

I call this offering a Season, because it takes time, my loves.

ll craft requires practice and dedication. It’s a long game. It will take only a few months to cover all the materials of this Season. The practice of writing, however, can last an entire lifetime, and in my opinion, it can be a life well spent.

You invest energy and attention to understand your chosen craft, and it requires experience and self-reflection for you to understand yourself inside your craft—what you specifically can offer to a tradition with ancient roots, what you specifically need to integrate your life, make your meaning, and create the stories of your dreams.

So, each season will unfold at a measured pace. We will walk through stories, starting with the one we’ve just finished, and I’ll use each story to illustrate some tools you can use on your own.

For example, from this story, I want to highlight a few skills which I’ll cover next week:

  • learning to spot another person’s foundational lens.

  • developing a personal toolbox, one unique to you as a writer and a person.

  • discerning what belongs in that toolbox.

After that, we’ll dive a little bit deeper into structure—first the structure of the Season itself, and then the structure of stories.