Writing Through the Distractions

Our Story Summit faculty members share techniques that keep them on task.

Welcome to our very first Story Summit Substack column. We’re delighted to welcome you to our community of writers from all across the U.S. and several other countries. This photo is from one of our recent live online writing classes, and those smiles are real.

We have hundreds of these photos—one from every class we’ve offered over Zoom in the past five years—and every one of them captures those same kinds of smiles. They’re from emerging writers who are happy to be learning, honing their craft, and feeling connected through community.

Story Summit has its roots in 2020 and the pandemic, when writers were feeling more isolated than ever. We developed our program of live, interactive online classes to help them learn from some of the most successful creatives in entertainment and publishing—but also to know they’re not alone.

The recipe worked. We now have nearly 4,000 Summiteers in the community. Our students are getting published, getting their movies made, and giving each other the kind of support you’d expect from lifelong friends. That’s what happens when you have a shared purpose and want to bring more good into the world.

There are plenty of distractions in the world right now. But we know that one of the best things we can do in challenging times is the thing we feel called to do the most: write. Put words on the page, and use them to uplift and inspire.

So, for our inaugural Substack column, we reached out to a few of our faculty and guest instructors to find out what they do to make writing a priority when it’s easy to lose focus. Here are their thoughts, with a lot of inspiration and heart.

“First you’re given a gift. Then you learn how to use it. Then you see it can have an impact. That’s when you realize that unlike a bicycle or a wristwatch, this gift is not meant to be kept, but returned. Shared. Circulated. To be a thousand percent honest, every year it gets harder to sit down in that chair and stay there. But it’s this realization that does it: it was never our gift to begin with. We’re just the custodians of Story. We’re here to make sure that Story is passed from one generation to the next. Nothing is ever gone as long as Story remains.”
—Jeff Arch, Screenwriter, Sleepless in Seattle and Novelist, Attachments

“If writing is your passion, it is not hard to prioritize it. Do it every day. Every. Single. Day. Anticipate the joy writing brings you. Bask in it and just dive in.”
—Rosa Salazar Arenas, Award-Winning Television Writer

“I spend all day, every day, helping other writers bring their stories to the world, so it's very easy to push my own writing to the back of the list. If I don't schedule time into my week to work on my own novel, it doesn't get done. So I have learned to make an appointment on my calendar as if I'm an actual client. I'm trying to prioritize my own manuscript as much as I do the work of my students and clients. It's a silly little trick, but it's working!”
—Julie Cantrell, Managing Director, Story Summit and New York Times Bestselling Author, www.juliecantrell.com

“When I sit down to write, I don't bring my cell phone to my office, and I turn off all notifications on my computer. One telephone call, email, text message can completely derail my story. My writing time is sacred and by creating this safeguard around my work, I'm putting it first.”
—Sadeqa Johnson, New York Times Bestselling Author, The House of Eve, www.sadeqa.net / www.instagram.com/sadeqasays

“I believe in the power of a guide or a muse. So when I sit down to write, I close my eyes, get quiet, and ask, “What are we writing today?” Then I write from an inner voice or impulse. This has helped me face the blank page more times than I can count. It puts me in a collaborative spirit, where all the best stuff comes from. And it alleviates the pressure to produce that can scare me away from the computer.”
—Debra Landwehr Engle, Executive Director of Story Summit and Bestselling Author, The Only Little Prayer You Need, www.debraengle.com

“First, I write. I begin my day in the early morning hours and write until other family members are up. Then I can handle the emails and the Zoom calls and the paperwork.”—Margaret South, Co-Founder, All Girl Productions, www.margaretsouth.com

“I remind myself that writing Is more than putting words on a page. It includes many activities: researching, imagining, developing character bibles, creating visual boards of settings, and moving. When I walk, cycle, or swim, I am always thinking about the scene at hand and moving characters around in the setting, inventing their dialogue and revising it.”
—Alka Joshi, New York Times Bestselling Author, The Henna Artist, www.alkajoshi.com; IG: @thealkajoshi; FB: alkajoshi2019; TikTok: @thealkajoshi

“I make writing a priority by writing every day before the world gets in the way. I start at 5am and write for at least two hours with complete focus. I don’t get up to get food, check email, or check my phone. I stay in one place and get the job done. I always make daily and weekly deadlines and goals for myself. If I have to miss a morning, I make up the time on another day. Non-negotiable. It’s a good thing I love writing so much!”
—Karen Schaler, Emmy Award-Winning Writer, Netflix, Hallmark, Lifetime, Audible, HarperCollins, stan.store/karenschaler & karenschaler.com

“Based on my experience advising writers and directors at Paramount and Disney, I’ve found that every creation goes through three stages. Stage One: The Messy Stage. Getting it down—somehow, somewhere. This is the clay. Stage Two: Making Sense of It. Finding logic, structure, and meaning. Does it hold together? This is the statue. Stage Three: Making It Beautiful. The final touches—the tweaks, revisions, and refinements that make the work shine. This is the glaze. No one escapes this process: Messy, Making Sense, and then Making It Gorgeous. Wrestling with the clay, shaping the statue, polishing the glaze—all of it requires mastery. You must claim it, shape it, and see it through—because if you don’t, it will start mastering you.”
—David Kirkpatrick, Former President, Paramount Studios; Former Chief of Production, Disney; Founder, Story Summit

What’s your favorite tip for writing through distractions? We hope you’ll share it with us in Comments.

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Want more Story Summit?

Stay in touch and up to date through these links:

Facebook page. Our Summiteers page is a great place to network, show support, and find out about the latest classes and retreats.

Our weekly newsletter. It comes to your email inbox every Tuesday with news about upcoming classes and our popular Photo of the Week.

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What’s coming up at Story Summit?

Here are a few of our upcoming classes and events. Check out the complete schedule at www.storysummit.us.

March 4: Want to know what Story Summit is all about? Join us for a one-hour “Freshman Orientation” tonight from 8 to 9 p.m. Eastern to see how our unique combination of craft and community can help you move forward as a writer. The event is free!

March 5 and 12: Join former Paramount Pictures story editor David Kirkpatrick for a two-night deep dive into the power of screenplay coverage in Mastering Coverage: Crafting, Creating & Controlling the Narrative of Your Screenplay.

March 17 and 24: Join New York Times bestselling author Julie Cantrell and learn her secrets for Writing Riveting Dialogue.

Final thoughts…

Story Summit was founded by David Kirkpatrick, the former president of Paramount Studios and former chief of production for Disney. From the beginning of Story Summit, his dream has been to help make writers’ dreams come true. It’s happening in big ways, so from time to time we’ll feature Summiteers whose work is being published or produced and let you know how they did it.

We hope that one of those writers will someday be you. Please reach out, leave a comment, and check out our links. And most of all, please join us! We’d love to welcome you to our Story Summit community.