Shows / The Daily Writer
The Daily Writer
The Daily Writer is a podcast for writers who want to live a more intentional and creative life.Hosted by author and ghostwriter Kent Sanders, each episode offers practical insights, encouragement, and inspiration to help you build a consistent writing habit, overcome creative obstacles, and become the author of your own story.Whether you’re writing a book or trying to make progress on work that matters, The Daily Writer will help you take the next step. Learn more at DailyWriterLife.com.
Episodes
The Daily WriterBest Of: It’s Time to Take the Stage
A powerful movie, if you haven’t seen it, is Dead Poets Society from 1989. The late Robin Williams plays, an English teacher who challenges his students with…
The Daily WriterThe Saddest Reason to Avoid Writing
There are a lot of reasons people give for avoiding the hard work of writing. One of the most common ones is a lack of time. Others include not knowing what to…
The Daily WriterBe a Creator, Not Just a Consumer
One of the most important decisions you make as a writer is how to balance your input and output. Or to say it another way, how much time you devote to…
The Daily WriterPlay a Brave Character
As a writer, you have to do things sometimes that make you uncomfortable. It might be networking, public speaking, learning self-publishing, joining a writing…
The Daily WriterSay It Out Loud
If you are familiar with the organization Alcoholics Anonymous, you have probably seen or heard about the way people sometimes introduce themselves at these…
The Daily WriterStep Out of the Shadows
One of the most famous movies of all time, and what many consider to be the greatest movie of all time, is 1941’s Citizen Kane, starring Orson Welles. While it…
The Daily WriterOpportunity or Threat? You Get to Choose.
We writers, by definition, tend to be an introverted group of people who don’t like change. Most of us like systems, predictability, and routine. We prefer…
The Daily WriterYour Weakness is Your Secret Weapon
This one is for all the 1980s rock fans out there. In 1985, the music group Heart was choosing songs to record for its 8th studio album, which was to be named…
The Daily WriterTeresa McCloy & Ashley Rescot: Using the Enneagram to Write Fiction
I've always been fascinated by personality assessments and typology. If you've been paying attention the last decade or two, the Enneagram has been the tool of…
The Daily WriterThe One You're Writing For
So many aspiring authors never write their books because they are always worried about what people will think. Will their book be “good enough” (whatever that…
The Daily WriterRead Your Writing Out Loud
When we talk about your “writing voice,” we usually mean the unique way you communicate. It involves tone, language, turns of phrase, attitude, and more. But…
The Daily WriterGratitude Changes Everything
On this podcast, we focus heavily on writing habits because they help immensely in getting our writing done. Good writing habits don’t just involve things like…
The Daily WriterElvis, Nixon, and Learning to Take Initiative
If you were to guess what the most requested image in the National Archives is, what would your guess be? Would it be something related to the moon landings?…
The Daily WriterDo You Tell People You're a Writer?
We have been talking a lot about habits here on the podcast lately. Let’s talk for a moment about a habit that will boost your confidence and will be good for…
The Daily WriterAssume It's Going to Be Easy
Okay, it’s time for some real honest talk between writers. Just you and me, two friends gathered around the podcast, baring our souls together. I’ll be honest…
The Daily WriterKen Carfagno: Letting Your Creativity Flow
One of the most difficult things for us to do as writers is get into a state of creative flow. Yet, it's also one of the most important things we can do…
The Daily WriterShow Up and Produce the Words
There is a lot of pressure in the writing and publishing worlds to create the “right” words—words that are moving, effective, emotional, and whatever other…
The Daily WriterIn Writing, Less is More
One of the most vital questions we can ask in our writing is, “What can I cut out?” This is a great habit to adopt because cutting makes your writing sharper…
The Daily WriterDo You Have a Daily Word Count?
As a ghostwriter, I live and die by word counts. Page numbers mean very little because pages come in all sizes, and fonts and spacing can be increased or…
The Daily WriterPut Some Clay on the Table
Have you ever seen someone make pottery? It’s actually quite fascinating. It’s fun to watch them at work, and it’s often breathtaking to see the beautiful…
The Daily WriterJerry Seinfeld's 200-Round Practice Routine
Years before he was known as the star of the beloved sitcom Seinfeld, Jerry Seinfeld was a successful stand-up comedian. For comedians of his era in the 1970s…
The Daily WriterWhat Every Writer Wants
Writers want lots of things. We want to have successful books. We want to be acknowledged for our creative work. We want to make a difference in people’s lives…
The Daily WriterT.K. Johnson: Slay the Dragon That Scares You
Have you ever avoided doing something that scares you? As writers, we face this every day. After all, writing is scary! Our most important task is to "slay the…
The Daily Writer10 Habits That Make Writing Easier
Yesterday, we looked at ten habits that make writing harder. The list was pretty depressing because most people have most of those habits in their life. It’s…
The Daily Writer10 Habits That Make Writing Harder
Writing is hard enough already. We are constantly fighting against deadlines, self-confidence issues, the need to market versus being productive, distractions…
The Daily WriterGo to the Plate and Swing the Bat
Yesterday, we talked about the value of hitting singles. The main idea was this: if you focus on getting small wins every day, you will eventually win the…
The Daily WriterTry to Hit a Single Every Day
Today, I want to use an analogy from the world of baseball to help us understand the value of putting in the work every day. One of the greatest reputations…
The Daily WriterCreate a “Stop Doing” List
Most people, including myself, create a task list each day. We also call this a “to do” list. These are things we must do. And in a world that increasingly…
The Daily WriterSave Time & Energy with Batching
Although this podcast is called The Daily Writer, the reality is that many people don’t write every day. They may set aside time every couple of days or once a…
The Daily WriterDan Clark: The Science of Focus
Do you have trouble focusing and getting your writing done? It's a common problem almost all writers face. On today's episode, we'll explore how to focus and…
The Daily WriterFinish & Publish
In the previous episode, I mentioned the importance of finishing a first draft of your book. But the urgency doesn’t stop there. I’m not saying you should be…
The Daily WriterThis Will Give You Incredible Momentum
Why don’t people finish goals that are important them? There are probably many answers to that question, but an obvious reason is that they simply get tired…
The Daily WriterGo Backward to Go Forward
One of the reasons why we sometimes get stuck in our writing is that we see how much there is left to do. Let’s say you’re writing a 750-word blog post. You…
The Daily Writer10 Tips to Beat Writer's Block
Whatever you’re working on right now, you’re bound to get stuck at some point. When you stumble upon our old friend, lovingly called “writer’s block,” here are…
The Daily WriterStop Trying to Be Productive
Most people listening to this podcast are located in the United States, so let me focus on that crowd for a second. Part of our culture here in the U.S. is…
The Daily WriterGo to the Slush Pile
Once you make the decision to start writing, and you do it on a regular basis (hopefully every day), over time you will build up quite a collection of…
The Daily WriterJoe Bukartek: Set Yourself Up for Success with Intentional Planning
I hope your 2022 is off to a great start. Here it is, the end of January, and we've had a solid month to get some meaningful work done toward our goals. How…
The Daily WriterJohn Bucher: Learning to Tell a Better Story
We've talked about it many times here on the podcast, but it always bears repeating: one of the most powerful skills you can learn is storytelling. We are…
The Daily WriterRelease Dates Exist for a Reason
If you have ever watched behind-the-scenes documentaries for movies, you have probably heard directors talk about the impulse to keep tweaking a movie…
The Daily WriterYou Can’t Edit a Blank Page
A common problem we writers have is how to get started. We have a rough vision of what we want to create, but we’re afraid to take that first step. What if we…
The Daily WriterDo Writing Tools Matter? Yes & No.
If you get heavily involved in the writing community, you have to be careful. Why? Because there is a whole sub-industry devoted to writing tools that…
The Daily WriterA Good Writing Day
One of the difficulties of creative work, which includes writing, is that we sometimes have vague ideas about our goals. We haven’t determined ahead of time…
The Daily WriterPodcasting is Your Secret Weapon
A lot of you who are listening are working on books. I’d like to share a method I’ve been using to write my upcoming Daily Writer book, which will release this…
The Daily WriterNick Pavlidis: The Power of Ghostwriting
If you have followed my journey the last couple of years, you know that I have transitioned into being a full-time ghostwriter, while also leading our Daily…
The Daily WriterWhat Would You Do with a Time Stone?
If you’ve ever seen the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies Dr. Strange or Avengers: Infinity War, you’re familiar with an object called the “time stone.” The…
The Daily WriterKim Stewart: Grow Your Author Platform with Podcast Guesting
There are many ways to market yourself as an author, but, on today's episode, we will explore one of the most effective strategies—being a guest on other…
The Daily WriterWhy Are You So Busy?
The most common complaint about writing is that it takes time. There is nothing that keeps people from writing more than the idea that they simply don’t have…
The Daily WriterFollow the 30-Second Rule
Have you ever tried taking a cold shower? Apparently, it’s all the rage these days. If you want to spend a couple of hours going down a rabbit hole, hop onto…
The Daily WriterThe Infamous Vomit Draft
There are lots of enemies we have to battle as writers. One of the most ferocious ones is self-editing. Self-editing is the tendency to edit as you go, to…
The Daily WriterUse Music to Help You Focus
For most writers, writing feels like work because it requires a lot of brainpower. So why not use tools that help make the work easier? One of the most…
The Daily WriterWhat Can You Put Off Till Tomorrow?
We live in an age of urgency where everything must be done right now. But is that really true? Does everything in life have the urgency we ascribe to it? Mark…
The Daily WriterEvery Day Counts
We’ve talked about the urgency of today many times before on this podcast. Why? Because it’s so easy to lose sight of the present moment when so many things…
The Daily WriterMary Felkins: Writing a Fiction Series
Have you ever thought about writing fiction? Furthermore, have you ever considered how writing a fiction series might be a great way to expand your story world…
The Daily WriterSave Loads of Time with Dictation
One of the best and worst things ever invented was the smartphone. It can be the worst thing because of all the distractions lurking on your phone. The…
The Daily WriterThe Price of Saying "Yes"
A few weeks ago, I said “no” to an amazing opportunity to help writers. This was an opportunity to partner with an entrepreneur I greatly respect, a person who…
The Daily WriterMorning, Afternoon, or Evening?
There is a common narrative among successful people that you must be a morning person in order to do anything worthwhile. A pretty good percentage of the…
The Daily WriterYou're Never Too Old for Games
Writing is a serious business, but that doesn’t mean you always have to be serious. A great way to write more, and have more fun doing it, is to make a game of…
The Daily WriterDo What’s in Front of You
As writers, we have lots of project-based items to think about. These are big items that can take weeks or months to complete. This can include things like…
The Daily WriterUse the Pomodoro Technique for Faster Writing
In the 1980s, a university student named Francesco Cirillo was having trouble staying focused, so he decided he would try focusing for just ten minutes. As…
The Daily WriterAndy Storch: How to Use Your Book to Build a Business
We talk about books quite a bit here on this podcast, because after all, this is a writing podcast! But what happens after you write the book? That's only half…