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Transcript

You Are Your Only Competition · The Daily Writer

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider, where we share a lesson each day to help you cultivate the habits for creative success.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you ever run a race, you'll notice that there's two kinds of runners.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Those who are competing against everyone else and those who are competing against themselves.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: The ones who are competing against everybody else take running really, really seriously.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: They like to set records and they like to get the glory of being known as a winner.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, of course.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: But the runners competing against themselves aren't really worried about anybody else's time.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: They just want to run their own race and hopefully beat their own previous record.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: At the very least, they just want to finish their race, which honestly is a phenomenal achievement in itself, since the vast majority of people never even participate in a race.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Many writers look at the creative journey as one where they're competing against everybody else.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: They worry too much about rankings, comparisons, and what everybody else thinks of them.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: But writing is really much more about running your own race.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Are you getting better over time?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Are you consistently publishing your work?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Are you leaning more and more into your own unique voice?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the kinds of metrics that matter most.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: The novelist David Morrell, who wrote the bestseller First Blood, said this.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: You have to follow your own voice.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be yourself when you write.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: In effect, you have to announce this is me, this is what I stand for, this is what you get when you read me.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing the best I can, by me or not, but this is who I am as a writer.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: The only person you are responsible to become is you, and the only race you need to run is the one you're running against yourself.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been listening to this show for any length of time, you know that one of the four practices of a great writer is creativity.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to stay creative, you've got to have great input.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where writing prompts come in.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: A writing prompt is a sentence or two that helps you break through creative blocks, brainstorm new ideas, and get back into a state of flow.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Writing prompts are an awesome creative tool for journaling, storytelling, creative writing, stress relief, social media posts, and so much more.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: But the great news is that you don't have to create these yourself.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: We've put together an amazing package of 365 daily writing prompts.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So every day for the next year, you can have a shot of inspiration delivered straight to your inbox.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can check it out at dailywriterlife.com slash writing prompts.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.