21 Compliments For 21 Daily Writing Prompts & A Challenge

Folks taking round three are receive their third set of 21 daily writing prompts.

Here are a few of the many positive words I have received for my 21 Moments Writing Challenge, now entering its third month with three rounds of challenges happening at once!

Today is the last day to sign up for March. More info here.

Participants receive:

  • 21 examples of excellent writing curated by Christina Katz and delivered right to your inbox.
  • A list of reasons to write, so you can write for the reasons most compelling to you.
  • 102 new personal experience prompts each time you take the challenge.
  • Simple methods for idea-catching, so you won’t lose a single idea.
  • A deadline: your goal is to write 21 250 – 500 word pieces by the end of the month.
  • The opportunity to submit one of your moments as an excellent example for future participants.

All for only $21 per round – that’s cheaper than most community education classes–even if you take all three rounds.

And you never have to leave home to participate. Hope you can join us! Here are some of the things that former participants are saying:

The 21 Moments Writing Challenge was the launching point for my daily writing, and as a result I felt more creative and had more ideas to pursue during the rest of the day. ~ Cindy H.

21 Moments taught me that it is quite possible to write every day, regardless of a job, other commitments or distractions. Anything can be turned into a moment to write about. The possibilities are surprising and endless! Thanks, Christina! I am recommending 21 Moments to others! ~ Ruth Ann A.

The challenge was just what I needed to get my writing going again, and to make writing a priority in my life again in a stress-free way. ~ Ellen S.

Folks taking round two are receiving their second set of 21 daily writing prompts.


I’ve been “stalking” Christina (in a non-scary way, of course…) online for years. Watching her classes, watching her celebrate her students and wishing from afar I could participate. When a friend suggested that I really needed to get serious about my writing I decided I’d jump on this challenge as a way to motivate myself and learn a little from Christina. Best decision ever! It was just right for me! And the nudge to write a moment every day has led me to produce some great writing that I would not have otherwise attempted. Thank you! ~ Christy M.

21 Moments was a perfect challenge to boost my writing slump. I felt no pressure to meet deadlines or write to a specific prompt. I loved the flexibility without being monitored. The price is so-o-o reasonable. I plan to increase my personal commitment on Round 2. Let’s get started! ~ Illene S.

I got deep thinking, deep writing, and a sense of accomplishment. The writings I produced were all about me – it felt good to loosen up and just write. ~ Krysty K.

Christina’s’ writing challenge makes limp brain cells come alive to push words across the page. ~ Lila J.

I had ideas for stories I’ve been wanting to write, but I decided to just enjoy the pieces Christina gave us to read each day and see what transpired. Sometimes the pieces gave me moments related to what I wanted to write, sometimes not. What they DID do is give me the motivation to write. Every. Single. Day!  An additional benefit of the challenge, even though we don’t interact with others: I came to feel part of a group. I looked forward to checking my inbox each morning and the commitment I’d made to writing for 21 days. I used to do morning pages, but for me, I didn’t have the discipline to get it done. This works for me! ~ Mandy S.

I love Christina Katz’s versatility as a teacher. She is always looking for new and creative ways to motivate her students to write. She has done it with the 21 Moments Challenge. Short and sweet, easy to keep up with and an excellent value. ~ Kristin W.

Having a whole twenty-one days to write has really lit my fire to keep writing. I give this class a twenty-one writer salute. ~ Annette S.

21 Moments is a great motivator to get started and to keep going. This is a great tool to break out of a writing slump. ~ Leigh B.

These prompts are great!  You have the uncanny knack of selecting poems and stories that are some of my favorites. ~ Shirley J.

Folks taking round one will get their first set of 21 daily writing prompts.

Christina’s 21 Moments Challenge provided the inspiration and know how exhibited in thoughtfully chosen examples to get me writing in ways I didn’t think were possible for me. Each day of the challenge provided an example of how it’s done. It was up to me to accept the challenge and get it done to the best of my ability. ~ Diane T.

Christina has always affirmed her belief in mastering small forms of writing before taking on bigger projects. 21 Moments is a great place to start, given the smaller word-count and the emphasis on writing every day. Not only can you produce your work piece by piece, but the format also helps you stick to a regular rhythm for long-term success. This exercise helped me formulate pieces of a rough draft for a novel that I have been trying to get together for over a year now!  ~ Kristeen M.

Writing one moment each day required focus, the one element I lack most. This course challenged me and the first few writings were rough. When I finally wrote one solid moment with no rambling, I learned how to reign in my wandering mind. I enjoyed opening my email each morning. Now that the challenge is over, my inbox feels empty. However, I’ve gained focus and consistency and am applying it each day. I pull a book off my shelf, read a page and write…one moment. Just one. ~ Diane J.

You are making me want to go back and reread all these classics!  ~ Kandace C.

Christina, I just want to thank you for offering the “moments.” The daily prompts helped me to begin to regain my focus and play with different genres. ~ Judy S.

A daily writing prompt delivered to your in box takes the work out of searching for inspiration, yet provides a gentle push to flex your writing muscles every day. Like the best personal trainer, Christina mixes up the genres for the prompts, so your writing muscles do not plateau. ~ Sue L. (Round One)

I write with pen and paper (first), and that journal I got for Christmas is filling up fast, thanks to the 21 Moments Writing Challenge! ~ Debbie S.

The greatest thing this did for me was get me writing every day; writing every day has always been an area that I struggle with. I told myself that I only had to write for five minutes, but it always ended up being longer.  I used the time to attempt some scenes from a novel I’ve had floating around in my head for a while. The freedom to just focus on a “moment” was refreshing and prevented me from getting bogged down in details of the bigger picture. ~ Yvonne S.

This is the perfect program to jump start any writing project. I finished the 21 days with 25 pages of raw and material, and because the focus was on 21 different important moments, the writing is focused meaty. ~ Lela D.

Spring Forward In Your Writing Career

For the past 12 years, I have been consistently coaching writers in how to take what they have to offer to the next level.

I offer classes for beginners, intermediate, and advanced students. I teach my six-week classes independently, over e-mail five times per year. I offer six classes of increasing levels of difficulty at this time, and I am pleased to report that all six produce excellent short-term and long-term results.

Beginning next week, I will be offering three of these classes. If you want to get started writing for publication, if you want to discover your strengths and concisely communicate your writer platform, or if you want to exponentially grow the number of quality articles you have in process, I’d love to work with you in one of my classes that begin next week. And here they are:

I hear comments like this about my classes often:

Thank you for the amazing experience of this class. It is truly one of the best I have ever taken.

Thanks for the opportunity to explore some of my topics more deeply. Looking forward to getting more articles polished and submitted!

I’m amazed by how the picture of this e-book is growing clearer in my mind. It feels like you’re having us harness as much energy and excitement as we can gather for doing the work ahead. (Micro-publishing starts in May)

If you have your eye on any of my advanced classes like micro-publishing for mom writers, I only work with writers I have worked with before in advanced classes. So if you have worked with me in the past, and you are now ready to take your career to the next level, I hope you will check out my latest offerings because I would love to work with you.

And if you’ve taken a class with me in the past, had some success, but have became waylaid along the way, and now you are ready to dive back in, I’d love to work with you. Whether you work with me consistently over time, sporadically over time, or even just once in a while, my classes can produce excellent results in advancing your professional writing career.

Hope to work with you this spring! Feel free to contact me with any questions at “christina at christina katz dot com.”

Get 21 Writing Prompts Each Month For The Next Three Months

21 Moments Writing Challenge Round One With Christina KatzLike writing daily writing prompts?

My 21 Moments Monthly Writing Challenge begins again on Friday, March 1st. And this time there will be three rounds happening at once.

You must complete round one to be eligible for round two. And you must complete round two to be eligible for round three. But it’s perfectly fine to take a month or two off in between rounds because the challenge runs nine months a year. So you can jump back in any time.

The challenge will be running all three levels for the next three months, then I’ll take two months off and start back up September – November. Then I’ll take December off. And then we’ll start again in January of 2014.

21 Moments Writing Challenge Round Two With Christina KatzSo, what are you waiting for? Join us. This is a great opportunity for writing buddies or writing groups to do something affordable together that will inspire you to improve the quality of your existing writing, as well as inspiring your to write better today and tomorrow.

Not sure if daily writing prompts can benefit your writing process? Check out 21 reasons to take the challenge here.

Here’s what folks who have taken the challenge have to say about The 21 Moments Monthly Writing Challenge:

Christina has always affirmed her belief in mastering small forms of writing before taking on bigger projects. 21 Moments is a great place to start, given the smaller word-count and the emphasis on writing every day. Not only can you produce your work piece by piece, but the format also helps you stick to a regular rhythm for long-term success. This exercise helped me formulate pieces of a rough draft for a novel that I have been trying to get together for over a year now!  ~ Kristeen M.

21 Moments Writing Challenge Round Three With Christina KatzWriting one moment each day required focus, the one element I lack most. This course challenged me and the first few writings were rough. When I finally wrote one solid moment with no rambling, I learned how to reign in my wandering mind. I enjoyed opening my email each morning. Now that the challenge is over, my inbox feels empty. However, I’ve gained focus and consistency and am applying it each day. I pull a book off my shelf, read a page and write…one moment. Just one. ~ Diane J.

The greatest thing this did for me was get me writing every day; writing every day has always been an area that I struggle with. I told myself that I only had to write for five minutes, but it always ended up being longer.  I used the time to attempt some scenes from a novel I’ve had floating around in my head for a while. The freedom to just focus on a “moment” was refreshing and prevented me from getting bogged down in details of the bigger picture. ~ Yvonne S.

I Teach Writers How To Turn Potential Into Action

In Seth Godin’s blog today, he says something brilliant today, as usual.

He says that it’s not about having talent; it’s about having good habits.

As a writing coach for the past twelve years, this is something I’ve been saying for a long time.

Writing success is a process, not a God-given ability. I know plenty of able writers who won’t write anything publishable today or even this year for one reason or another.

Fortunately, I know hundreds (maybe thousands) of hard-working writers today who will write something publishable today, simply because they stick with the work at hand and don’t give up.

The most successful writers I work with have two things in common:

  1. They work hard.
  2. They don’t need anyone to tell them how talented they are.

In The Writer’s Workout, I said:

I don’t prefer working with “talented” writers because I find they are more focused on getting strokes than motivated to work hard on to the next piece of writing. Show me an industrious writer who knows how to keep moving for- ward and I’ll show you a writer who is going to get published.

I also said:

Once you make writing a habit, craft will come down from her pedestal and join you in the dance.

In Get Known, I said:

If you are attached to the idea of being talented, getting discovered, and having overnight literary success, you are going to be a dead duck in publishing waters, my friend. Agents can smell a dead duck a mile away (the same way they can sniff out a writer on the brink of success), and they just give it a wide berth.

In Writer Mama, I said:

Beginning writers need to remember that it isn’t talent alone that sets you apart from the crowd. Just as important are appropriateness of your ideas, attention to detail, professionalism, and follow-through. Believe me, there are plenty of writers out there who write well. But there is a shortage of writers who take their writing seriously without taking themselves too seriously.

Stephen King said:

If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn’t bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau said:

However great a [person’s] natural talent may be, the art of writing cannot be learned all at once.

Get it?

Talent doesn’t matter.

In fact, it can really mess with your head.

In the long run, the measure of your success is what you do or do not accomplish today.

So get back to work and get something measurable done today. Okay, writers?

Memoir Writing Tips: How To Get Your Story On The Page

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Photo by Sylwia Bartyzel via Unsplash.com

I have a few tips for memoir writers that might help avoid the usual I-wrote-this-for-therapy-and-now-I-want-to-sell-it pitfall.

Keep in mind, I have no problem with writing a memoir as a form of therapy. But if you have no previous professional writing experience, little concept of how the publishing business works, and you have read scant well-written memoirs, the chances that you will write a saleable memoir are very slim.

So if you are writing a memoir for therapy, go ahead. But if you are writing a memoir to sell, here are a few tips:

1.Read plenty of memoirs before you start writing yours, but don’t read memoir writing how-to books until the full first draft is done.

2. Write the complete story in short segments. Leave no idea unturned. Get every single emotionally charged moment onto paper.

3. Have a searchable method of compiling what you write. Electronic folders work well and are searchable. Keep your longhand draft if you hand one, but copy portions into Word as you go. Don’t edit them too much.

4. Don’t try to come up with a structure for your memoir until you are through writing what you believe is a full, unstructured draft.

5. When you are through, put the draft away and get some education on the way memoirs are structured or work with a writing coach to help you draw out the themes of your memoir. Most memoirs are not just about one thing, they are about a lot of things. These messages are often revealed naturally in the telling, or simply implied by the story itself.

6. Do some outlining with the reader in mind. What’s the story about from the reader’s point of view. It’s time for you to get out of the way and think about what the reader needs and wants to know. Maybe you don’t need to tell your whole entire life story. There is a very good chance that this won’t make a compelling read, anyway. Maybe focusing on 8 key weeks in your life and using flashbacks and flash-forwards would make more sense. You won’t know if it works until you try it, but when you dive back into your material, have a structural plan.

7. Pull together a full structured rough draft using pieces you already wrote and quickly jotting down transitional information and flashbacks, etc. What do you notice? You notice that the first draft you wrote helped you get some distance from your story but is typically not the actual story the reader wants. The actual story may still need to be written. If so, you will know once you have pulled together a full rough. But you still needed the full rough to help you get past your self-consciousness. So don’t skip it.

8. Smooth out your full rough and get a profession read of it. What you need to know is whether you have a saleable story or a therapeutic story. If you have emotional distance from your story, this will increase the likelihood that you have a saleable story. If you don’t, it’s unlikely that you will be able to take the story to the artistic level required of memoir. Don’t be upset if this is the case. You can always put the draft away and let some time pass. No good ideas ever die, that’s my motto.

9. When it’s time to compose what will become your saleable draft, approach the task like a professional author. Have specific hours when you work. Follow your plan. Listen to what the story is telling you as you go. Take the professional advice you have received into account and get the manuscript to a polished full draft. You may have to write several full drafts to accomplish this. You may need to walk away from the job many times to maintain emotional distance. Don’t complain if no one told you how incredibly hard it is to write a book. This is simply what authors go through every single time they create a worthwhile read.

10. Have other things going on in your life too. Especially other creative projects. Maybe you paint. Maybe you decorate. Maybe you are a social butterfly. Don’t give up the other things you love just because you are working on a memoir. Immerse yourself in your book while you are working on it, but then let normal life flow back in. You’ll get the darn thing done eventually.

11. Once you have a polished draft, it’s time for multiple professional opinions. I would not give the manuscript to your friends and family at this point. If you wrote it for traditional publication, then your friends and family can wait along with everyone else. You have to be able to be detached at this point. You can’t take professional  feedback on your manuscript as a reflection on you. It’s about the writing, not about you. This is about the marketplace, what’s selling, and what readers want according to publishing professionals. You want their opinions. But you have to be open and stay open to hear what you need to hear to get your manuscript up to snuff.

12. Listen to what to the professional feedback about your manuscript. If the consensus is that it has potential, then stay with it, even if it needs more work or a major rewrite. Work with a professional editor if you feel overwhelmed or uninformed about how to take the manuscript to the next level. If the feedback isn’t what you hoped to hear, if the consensus is that you have created something that is not saleable, then take a couple of steps back and regroup. Let some time pass and then decide if you want to self-publish or not. But don’t rush into it in the heat of disappointment. Wait. Go to some self-publishing conferences and decide if this is really something you want to do.

13. Time is your friend, when it comes to memoir writing. If you are going to tackle such an enormous project with little professional experience, then you need to focus on writing for readers. Better yet, write for one reader—a reader like you, who would appreciate your topic and your style and your voice. If you don’t know how to write for readers, if you don’t know how to make the most of your personal experience in words that are so compelling that the reader must turn the page, then it’s unlikely that you will be able to create a saleable memoir.

But you won’t know until you try, will you? So go ahead and try. And best of luck.

I am a veteran journalist, author and coach with over a decade and a half of experience and a wealth of techniques to share. I am focused on making the world a saner, more expressive place. I help folks become more creative for personal enjoyment, professional development and transformational growth. Whether you are a professional creative or hope to become one some day, I can help you embrace your personal strengths, explore your creative possibilities, and evolve incrementally into your most inspiring self. If you are ready to achieve creative consistency in your life and career, email me about monthly coaching calls. To learn more about increasing your creative confidence, please check out my online school. Stay tuned for ways to save money by becoming a Beta User for my next new course by subscribing to The Prosperous Creative. And don’t forget to get these blog posts delivered to your inbox, so you never miss a post. If you appreciate my work—school, products, blog and social media posts—you are welcome to make a contribution of any size at any time. Thank you for your support!

Recent News From Christina Katz: Publications & Projects

Sometimes the platform popcorn is all popping at once and it’s hard to keep up with all the good news around here. But I’ll give it a shot. Here goes!

I have been recently quoted in:

Writer’s Guide To 2013, quoted in “Maximize Your Productivity,” by Leslie J. Wyatt (The Writer’s Bookstore 2013)

Interview in Hippocampus Magazine with Lori M. Myers, Interviews Editor

Interview in Glocal Mag — Tackling The Business Side of Creativity with Sharmeen Akbani Gangat

I have been recently published in:

Maritime Family

Suburban/Irving Parent

Valley Parent

Space City/Cy-Fair/Fort Bend/ Pearland Parent

Durham Parent

Central California Parent

Volusia/Flagler Parent

Washington Family

Oregon Family

The Willamette Writer (monthly column on Micro-publishing)

Recent and ongoing projects include:

New! Share Photos of Your Home Office on my Pinterest page

Old but necessary. Writers On The Move Healthy eating and exercise accountability group. I’m trying to hold steady at exercising four days a week. How about you?

My 21 Moments Writing Challenge is now gearing up for Round Three! Receive 21 examples of excellent writing in your inbox to prompt your own excellent quality writing! This challenge takes place every month. Check it out!

Please also check out these cool happenings:

This photo journalism essay, Inside Bollywood, by my friend, Mark Bennington, which was published in the Virginia Quarterly Review by my friend, Jane Friedman.

Health journalist and family sleep expert Malia Jacobson launched her second e-book, Sleep Tight, Every Night. I interviewed her about sleeping-through-the-night insights here.

Communications expert and journalist Christa Melnyk Hines launched her first e-book, Confidently Connected, A Mom’s Guide To A Satisfying Social Life. I interviewed her about how becoming better connected helps moms thrive. Check it out!

More awesome e-books are coming down the pipe. Up next? Something really different from Kathy Dubin Flynn. Stay tuned!

And coming soon, more e-books and creative challenges from me. Sign up for my e-zine to be first to hear the breaking news!

If you want to get on track to write and publish your own work, please check out my classes page. Next round starts March 6th!

And The Winner Of Ten Great Micro-published E-books is…

Kim Tso!

Congratulations, Kim.

You will be receiving your e-books from the individual authors and I hope that you will soon be following in their footsteps.

Enjoy your ten micro-published e-books. And your signed copy of Writer Mama, How To Raise A Writing Career Alongside Your Kids.

How to write for busy moms raising kids at home who want to make money writing.

Everything else is an e-book, but I will throw in a signed copy of Writer Mama because we are celebrating mom authors.

Hooray For A Valentine’s Day Book Giveaway!

I am creating a movement of hybrid authors who become their own publishing imprints before deciding to traditionally publish. And we are having so much fun doing it.

To celebrate, I am giving away all of these e-books to one lucky person.

These are all outstanding examples of how to micro-publish with professional panache. And one lucky winner is going to win the whole she-bang, plus a signed copy of Writer Mama.

Here’s the list of awesome e-books by mom writers:

Ready, Set, Sleep by Malia Jacobson LINK

Sleep Tight Every Night by Malia Jacobson LINK

What To Expect From Your Adopted Tween by Judy M. Miller LINK

Captain of her Crew: The Commercial Fishing Mom’s Guide To Navigating Life At Home by Jen Karuza Schile LINK

Mother-Daughter Book Club Meeting Planner Guides Collection One by Cindy Hudson LINK

Detachment Parenting by Heidi Smith Luedtke LINK

NEW Confidently Connected by Christa Melnyk Hines LINK

Author Mama by Christina Katz LINK

Discover Your Platform Potential by Christina Katz A $19 value! LINK

COMING SOON Sexy, Smart & Search-engine Friendly by Lela Davidson Coming Soon to LINK

All you have to do is answer one of these two questions:

What is holding you back from micro-publishing an e-book in your specialty or in an area that you feel passionate about? Is what’s holding you back a lack of publishing experience, a lack of confidence, a lack of funds, a fear of failure, a lack of permission—or what is it?

And if you are not feeling held back, then please answer the alternate question:

What motivated you to micro-publish and how did you make sure that you delivered as professional a product as possible?

Please do not include links in your comment. Deadline for comments is — EXTENDED — Sunday, February 17th at midnight.

The winner will be drawn by random selection and announced on Monday, February 18th. Hope you can join in the fun!

E-books will be delivered next week, except for Sexy, Smart & Search Engine Friendly, which will arrive closer to its launch date, which is March 19th.

The Writer’s Workout Sampler: 16 Chapters To Read First

Once upon a time I was asked to create a round up of some of my favorite chapters from The Writer’s Workout. This was no small job considering that there are 366 chapters in the book.

Then alas and alack, nothing ever became of my selection of chapters.

But never fear. I can share them here…and rhyme while doing it.

So, here is a round up of 16 chapters from The Writer’s Workout that I think rock, in my completely unbiased opinion.

The Writer’s Workout Chapter Sampler

Selected by writing coach and author, Christina Katz

Section One: Spring

Chapter 7: Take Stock

Chapter 16: Nurture Your Ideas

Chapter18: Adjust Your Attitude

Chapter 51: Experiment with Learning

Section Two: Summer

Chapter 134: Prioritize the Bottom Line

Chapter 156: Press On

Chapter 162: Identify Your Dynamic

Chapter 172: Concentrate Specifically

Section Three: Fall

189: Track Your Progress

191: Call Pleasure Your Business

197: Put Your Work Out There

233: Benefit from Online Tools

Section Four: Winter

275: Pick Both Sides

277: Become a Thought Leader

298: Think Beyond The Book

322: Mine Older Work For Books

Want to put a booster rocket under your writing career and feel better about how hard you work and all that you have already accomplished?

Then please pick up a copy of my latest book. It will change the way you think about your writing career.

• • •

The Writer’s Workout, 366 Tips, Tasks & Techniques From Your Writing Career Coach is written by Christina Katz for Writer’s Digest Books. For sale everywhere quality books are sold, including: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, IndieBound and Writer’s Digest. Listen to part of the introduction. Download an excerpt from Scribd. Get motivated by The Writer’s Workout Motivational Poster. Ready to get your writing career into shape? Let’s write the future…together.

And The Recipient Of The Writer Mama Scholarship Is…

Anna Petersen!

I look forward to working with you in Writing & Publishing The Short Stuff, which starts in just a few short weeks on Wednesday, March 6th.

Thanks to EVERYONE who applied! Choosing scholarship recipients is  extremely difficult because I always receive many applications from worthy writers. Always, always, always. Trust me, it never gets any easier.

This time around was NO exception. (Almost everyone could have been awarded a scholarship this time and it was tough to choose just one.)

Watch this blog, christinakatz.com and/or subscribe to The Prosperous Writer e-zine for all the details on future offers. I will be offering one scholarship for each Writing & Publishing the Short Stuff class session.

If you have not checked out my classes, you can learn more on the “Register” page. I am still accepting students for the March 6th Writing & Publishing the Short Stuff class.

But hurry! Don’t wait! Space is limited.

Congratulations again, Anna. I look forward to working with you!