How to Write and Compile a Daily Reader
I’ve always been a fan of daily morning readings. They have helped me get through some tough times—my 17-year-old brother’s death; my son’s degenerative disease and subsequent death; my daughter’s autism diagnosis; my divorce; and nine days later, the onset of transverse myelitis, a rare inflammation of the spinal cord affecting one in a million that left me paralyzed from the waist down. After the publication of my memoir Rethinking Possible, I was often asked, “How do you do it? What helps you cope?”
(Staying Positive While Writing About Death and Tragedy.)
One thing that I’ve found helpful is starting my day off with a positive tone. This doesn’t always come easy, but I often turn to inspirational quotes, mantras, and stories from my life or from the lives of those close to me to help me power through the difficult times. I have compiled many of these into a book of daily readings to encourage others, Morning Fuel—Daily Inspirations to Stretch Your Mind Before Starting Your Day, and learned a lot along the way.
Are you considering writing a book of daily readings? Here are six tips for staying on track while writing a daily reader.
Define your “why.”
Spend some time considering the purpose of writing your book. Why do you want to create a work of 366 readings and share them? Think through every motivation, write each one down, and keep the list handy. Review it anytime your pace slows or you need encouragement.
For example, I wrote Morning Fuel:
To capture family stories, quotes, and words of wisdom that still guide me.To share with others the kind of stories I read daily to start my day with inspiration.To offer reflections and takeaways that are helpful in staying positive despite life’s challenges.
Define your book’s “why.”
What will your book offer your readers? Based on my own use of morning readings, I began to notice how the readings were helpful to me. Then I asked my newsletter recipients to send me some of their favorite quotes. “What kind of quotes?” a few readers asked.
After mulling it over, I told them I wanted quotes that had either inspired, encouraged, or made them think. That answer became my book’s purpose and the criteria for subject matter as well as the clear lens of inclusion for deciding what was kept or cut during the final edits.
Start the Research-Read-Brainstorm-Write process.
Research other daily readers and note format, content, length, and any patterns that you find appealing. Some books have a strict page-a-day format. Others have entries that are different lengths and are continuous for the month. Some indicate the month and date; others only list the day of the week. Some end with a summation thought; others invite reflection with questions. Some offer a full index by topic; others omit an index or offer suggested readings by topic.Read some of your favorite daily readers for one month and see how they affect you—too long, too short, too prescriptive, too taxing, too judgmental? Use that experience to determine how you structure and format your entries. Your goal is to design a book that readers want to come back to each day.Brainstorm without boundaries. Create a list of key topics, quotes, takeaways, stories, etc., to serve as your content list and prompts for writing. I kept a running list in the notes app in my phone and would copy and paste it regularly to a Word document. A dedicated notebook and bedside notepad helped as did a healthy supply of sticky notes.Write content. Based on your content list, write 10 entries. Make them as complete as possible with thoughtful titles and summary statements or takeaways. Review with a trusted editor or writer for feedback, absorb, edit, and keep writing!
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Organize.
Collect your entries in ways that are easy to access and reorganize.
When I started writing, I first grouped my entries and put in Word files labeled by month. After edits, I copied and pasted each entry and created one Word file to house all edited documents. This file gave me quick access to the body of work if I needed to check for duplication of thoughts, phrases, or attribution.Excel is your friend. After about 100 entries, I realized I needed more help in tracking so I created a spreadsheet that numbered each entry, its title, month, and word count. As I began to review the entries from the reader’s perspective, I added columns to include quote attributions as well as friend and family names since I wanted to spread out those references. I also added columns to track the editing dates of submission and status.Structure: Decide if sequence will matter. The choice can range from none, to subject, to season. I found it helpful to consider the season in the sequencing of my entries since nature has a prominent role in most of my work.
Add your finishing touches.
Titles and takeaways are important, often best decided by an outside reader or editor. What is the point of the piece? How could it be applied to a larger audience?
Titles should be sound-bite summaries that hint at what’s to come while also reinforcing the key takeaway.Closing thoughts or takeaway questions are designed to imprint the lesson by prompting further thought.
Set goals, but hold them loosely.
Share your project idea with others who can support you. Give it a name—a working title or even “daily reader”—so you can give it space on your calendar and in your conversations. Writing is a mystery to many, but giving it a title brings the project to life.Set goals for updates. In my Thoughtful Thursdays newsletter, I told my subscribers and social media followers about my project, letting them know that although I would no longer be writing weekly, I would update them monthly. Those newsletters gave me a target date, a chance to “show my work” with photos, and an opportunity to ask for input (and encouragement!). They celebrated with me and for me every step of the way while also offering valuable insight and perspective.
Check out Rebecca Faye Smith Galli’s Morning Fuel here:
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