It is Swap Ideas Day! It’s a day for brainstorming with a friend.
Try this exercise: give your logline away and see what comes back.
You hand another writer your logline and nothing else. They write your first ten script pages, or your first chapter. You write theirs. A week later you trade back and read what somebody else did with your story.
Bam! A brand new angle on a story you have been living inside for months.
A notes session tells you what somebody thought of your execution. A swap shows you what your premise looks like another way. Great for jumpstarting your story when you’re stuck.
The Ten Page Swap
1. Trade loglines and nothing else. One sentence each. No pitch, no context, no “so the thing you need to understand is—.” If your partner has to ask a question before they start, your logline is not finished.
2. Follow the boundaries. One week. Ten script pages or one chapter. The constraint forces you to decide a take on the story.
3. Write it your way, not their way. You are not trying to guess what your partner would have done. You are writing the version you would write. The different approach is the point of the exercise.
4. Read all the way through before saying one word. No reactions, no reading over a shoulder, no commentary at the halfway mark. Finish first.
5. No defending. Your version is on the table. Their version is on the table. Neither one is a criticism of the other. You are exploring each other’s premises.
6. Compare with three questions.
• What did they do that I would never have done?
• What did we both do without discussing it?
• What did they find that is better than what I found?
7. Nobody owns anything. This is an exercise, nobody is co-writing anything. For clarity put the rules in an email.
What You Will Find Out
Your defaults. Where you start, how you start, who you start with.
How your premise lands. Anything you both did without discussing is the logline talking.
Where the story wants to start. Two writers, one premise, two different opening pages.
Try It!
Pick one writer and send them your logline today. One sentence, no explanation, plus the seven rules above.
Happy Swap Ideas Day! Go trade something. Go discover something. And let me know how it goes.
P.S. Did you run the swap and now you are staring at two openings with no idea which way to go? Bring both versions to a story coaching session and we will work out which one your story wants. Book a session here.
Check it Out!
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Today is Just Because Day! Do something for no reason today. Wear mismatched socks. Have dessert before dinner. Take an unplanned drive.
Writers are terrible at spontaneity. We have trained ourselves to make everything count. The hour has to produce pages, the trip has to be research, the movie has to be studied. Even our rest gets justified. We call it filling the well, because we can't just watch a bad movie in the middle of the afternoon.
But creativity doesn't only come from effort. A lot of it comes from the two things effort tends to squeeze out: novelty and play.
Novelty gives you something to work with.
Your imagination doesn't invent out of nothing. It recombines. Everything you make is built out of things you've noticed, and the trouble with a settled life is that you stop noticing. Same route, same coffee shop, same corner of the internet. Put yourself somewhere unfamiliar and your brain starts noticing things, filing things away for your next story.
Play turns off our inner critic.
The other thing that happens when something is pointless is that it can't fail. There's no standard to fall short of, no one to disappoint, nothing riding on it. This is the magic of kids’ creation. They create without worry. Channel your inner eight year-old. Silliness isn't the opposite of serious work. It's the state serious work comes out of.
Be silly! Play! Goof off! Create!
Three Silly Things To Try to Reboot Your Creativity
1. Break one rule of your writing routine.
Change it for a week. Write longhand instead of on the computer. Take a walk and dictate a chapter. Write after dinner instead of in the morning. Write the last scene first. This is not a productivity hack. It’s a way to unlock your brain and boost your creativity.
2. Do something that you've never done because it doesn't interest you.
Buy a ticket to a sport you've never watched: minor league baseball, high school wrestling, a rodeo. Find the small, strange museum devoted to a subject you have zero interest in: barbed wire, telephones, mustard. The lack of interest is the point. You're not there to gather material. You're there to be an outsider, which forces you to look at everything, because you don't know yet what's worth looking at.
3. Try a genre you don’t like.
If there's a genre you always avoid, experience it. Watch a western, read a romance, go to the opera! What would your story be like if you changed genres? Is there something new you could incorporate in your work in progress?
Or just have the ice cream
If the week is already full, do the small version. Have ice cream for breakfast. Pay for a stranger’s coffee. Wear a hat. These take five minutes to remind you that not everything you do has to be productive to be worth doing. No reason required .
I'd love to hear about your adventures! Hit reply and tell me if your Just Because experiment sparked any new ideas.
Ever wonder what it’s like to work with me? Watch me evaluate pitches on The Dialogue Doctor podcast!
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If this blog adds a little spark to your writing week, would you consider buying me a coffee? Your support helps me keep creating practical, joyful resources for writers.
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This week we celebrate a country that was born from one of the most brilliantly crafted pieces of writing in human history. Thomas Jefferson wrote a document that changed the world. Just like screenwriters and novelists, he did it with structure, pacing, and an unforgettable ending.
Jefferson Built a Case
The Declaration does not open with the conclusion. Jefferson does not lead with "We're breaking up with Britain." He builds to it.
He opens with a statement of universal principles. All men are created equal. People have rights. Governments exist to protect those rights. When they don't, the people can change them.
Then he presents the evidence. Twenty-seven specific grievances against King George. A relentless accumulation of wrongs. Taxation without representation. Soldiers quartered in private homes. Courts rigged against colonists. Each charge adds weight to the next.
Jefferson never tells you King George is evil. By the time Jefferson is finished, George III is not just a bad king; he is a tyrant without mercy.
The 27 Grievances: How to Build a Villain Through Accumulation
The structure of the grievances section is a masterclass in escalation, tension, and pacing.
Jefferson does not open with the worst charges. He starts with the administrative, the political, the procedural. The King has refused to sign laws. The King has dissolved legislatures. The King has obstructed justice. These are serious, but they are the acts of a bad bureaucrat, not necessarily a monster.
Then the charges begin to darken.
The King has sent swarms of officers to harass the people. He has kept standing armies among them in peacetime without consent. He has made the military superior to civilian authority. We are moving from political obstruction into something that feels more like occupation.
Then it gets worse.
He has waged war against his own people. He has plundered their seas and burned their towns. By the time you reach the final grievances, the King is not a distant bureaucrat making bad decisions. He is a warlord burning down the homes of his own subjects.
The Declaration is a 1,320-word novel where the villain is King George and the twist ending is America.
Powerful, Unforgettable Ending
The Declaration builds to a clear, decisive conclusion. The colonies are free and independent states. The political bands are dissolved. And the signers pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
The Declaration ends with one of the most extraordinary sentences in history.
"We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
By signing this document, the men of the Continental Congress were committing treason against the most powerful empire on earth. The penalty was death.
It is one of the most powerful endings in the history of the written word.
Remember
Two hundred and fifty years ago a writer sat down and crafted a document that changed history. The Founding Fathers understood that the right words, in the right order, with the right structure, could move people to action. Stories matter. Words are powerful!
Happy Independence Day. Now go write something that changes someone's world.
National Treasure (2004, Disney+) - a rag tag trio of history treasure hunters race an evil organization to find the treasure to follow the secret map on the back of the Declaration of Independence.
1776 (1972, Tubi or for rent on Prime Video) - a witty musical about the Founding Fathers.
Revolutionary Dramas
Movies:
A Great Awakening (2026, Prime Video) An unlikely friendship between fiery preacher George Whitefield and skeptic Benjamin Franklin sparks a spiritual revival that awakens the ideals of liberty and ignites the American Revolution.
The Patriot (2000) A family’s experience during the Revolutionary War when a father and the oldest son join the fight.
TV Series:
The American Revolution (2025, PBS) Ken Burns documentary about the American Revolution.
John Adams (2008, HBO+) Paul Giamatti as John Adams with Laura Linney as Abigail. It covers the lead up to independence, the war, and its aftermath.
Turn: Washington's Spies (2014-2017, AMC+), a gripping spy thriller following the Culpeper ring, George Washington's spy network.
The Crossing (2000) Prime Video - The Story of the Washington leading the troops across the Delaware River and the Battle of Trenton.
Check it Out!
Ever wonder what it’s like to work with me? Watch me evaluate pitches on The Dialogue Doctor podcast!
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If this blog adds a little spark to your writing week, would you consider buying me a coffee? Your support helps me keep creating practical, joyful resources for writers.
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Staring at a blank page can feel like an epidemic when you’re not only writing your current work-in-progress, but also your newsletter and your social media posts. That’s a lot of empty screens to fill. How are we supposed to talk about what we’re working on—or even past projects—without feeling salesy and weird? Is there any natural way to bring our accomplishments up?
Good news: yes. And I’ve got you covered with a creative calendar.
There are delightfully ridiculous national days every single day. Every day of the week offers something to write about, whether it’s Siblings Day or Hug Your Cat Day. There is always something happening that you can relate back to yourself, your characters, and your work.
Here’s what I mean: writer Shea Fontana used Wonder Woman Day to talk about her past work with the iconic character.
You can do the same thing with your stories. Does your character own a winery? There are lots of “drinky” days on the calendar, from Happy Hour Day (November 12) to Drink Wine Day (February 18), plus holidays that naturally center on drinking, like New Year’s Eve. Each of these days offers an easy, non-awkward opportunity to write something interesting and bring attention to your current or past projects.
And it’s not just about beverages. There are tons of writing-focused days, like:
Screenwriters Day – January 5
Comic Book Day – September 25
I Love to Write Day – November 15
Then we get into the genre goodness. There are so many fun, story-adjacent days, like:
Cozy Mystery Day – September 15
Pretend to Be a Time Traveler Day – December 8
Spy Day – April 10
See how your brain is already starting to spin out ideas?
And we’re still not done. It’s not just national days you can use—history is another gold mine for content. If you have a character who’s a woman scientist, you can talk about your project on the birthdays of famous women in science, from Ada Lovelace to Marie Curie.
When you use a creative calendar, you suddenly have literally a year’s worth of content ideas ready to go. You can download it here.
To make it all even easier on Future You, I use Metricool to schedule my social media and Kit for my newsletter. Plug your shiny new ideas into those tools, and you’ve got a content engine that runs all year long.
Ever wonder what it’s like to work with me? Watch me evaluate pitches on The Dialogue Doctor podcast!
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If this blog adds a little spark to your writing week, would you consider buying me a coffee? Your support helps me keep creating practical, joyful resources for writers.
Buy my bookHow to Turn Your Screenplay into a Novel! Turn your scripts into books and start earning money today!
Every January 1, something delightful happens in the creative universe: Public Domain Day. It’s the moment a fresh batch of older books, films, songs, art, and characters becomes legally free to remix, adapt, and reboot.
In plain writer-speak: creative works that are not protected by copyright make up the public domain. You don’t need permission. You don’t pay a licensing fee. You can build on them freely. It’s the yin to copyright’s yang, the eventual destination for creative work after exclusivity expires.
What the Public Domain Includes
Public domain isn’t one magic doorway. It’s a few different doors that all lead to the same party:
Expired Copyrights In the U.S., many older works enter the public domain after their copyright term runs out. In 2026, that includes works published in 1930 and earlier.
Uncopyrightable Material Some things can never be copyrighted: ideas, facts, raw data, names, titles, and short phrases. (You can’t copyright “Enemies to Lovers”).
U.S. Government Works Official U.S. government works are born public domain (think legislation, legal opinions, government-produced imagery).
Dedicated Works Some creators choose to place their work in the public domain (often using tools like Creative Commons).
Non-renewed Works Under older copyright rules, some works entered the public domain because the creator didn’t renew them.
What Just Entered the Public Domain in 2026 (A Few Juicy Examples)
If you like your creativity with a side of famous characters and instant cultural recognition, 2026 brought some real treats.
From 1930, works now in the U.S. public domain include (among many others):
Agatha Christie’s The Murder at the Vicarage (Miss Marple’s first appearance)
The first four Nancy Drew novels
The Maltese Falconby Dashiell Hammett (Private Detective Sam Spade’s debut)
Early versions of Betty Boop, Pluto, and Blondie & Dagwood
Songs like “I Got Rhythm” and “Georgia on My Mind”
Movies like Cimarron, The Big Trail, and The Divorcee
If you want the vibe in one sentence: 1930 was detectives, jazz, big studio glamour, and iconic characters stepping onto the stage.
Why Writers Should Care
The public domain is not just trivia. It’s a creative engine. A story gym. A legal permission slip to play with iconic characters and classic stories.
Here are four big reasons it matters:
1) It’s a cache of building blocks
Writers don’t create in a vacuum. We build from a shared culture that retells myths, echoes classics, and borrows structures. Public domain makes that legally simple when the source material is old enough. Use these stories as templates for your projects, retell, reboot, reimagine. The possibilities are endless!
2) You can write derivative works without licensing
Once a character or story is public domain, you can create new work based on it without infringement, as long as you’re using what’s actually in the public domain version (see below). That’s why we have countless Sherlock Holmes stories, fresh takes on classic tales like Pride and Prejudice, and re-imagined adaptations of The Three Musketeers.
3) Preservation: rescuing art from the void
A huge percentage of older works aren’t commercially available anymore. Public domain status helps archivists and creators digitize, restore, and share these orphan works so they don’t vanish into dust (or disintegrating film stock).
4) Clarity: fewer rights tangles
Tracking down who owns what from a century ago can be a nightmare yarn-ball. When a work enters the public domain, it creates legal clarity and reduces the chance of sketchy “pay me for something I don’t control” situations.
The Big Trap: Public Domain Doesn’t Mean All Versions Ever
When something enters the public domain, it’s often the earliest version that becomes free to use. Later adaptations, redesigns, additions, and famous “definitive” versions may still be protected.
A few examples to make that concrete:
Winnie-the-Pooh: the original book version is public domain, but the familiar red shirt Pooh is tied to later developments, so creators should stick to the original look.
Blondie and Dagwood: in the strip version entering public domain is the earlier era they are not married yet.
Betty Boop: use the early iteration. Later versions can pull you into rights tangles.
Sam Spade / The Maltese Falcon: the 1930 novel is the cleanest inspiration. The later film adaptation has its own separate rights.
Practical rule: If you’re adapting, start with the source material that is public domain (the exact book/strip/film from the eligible year), and build from what’s inside that fence line.
Copyright vs Trademark: What’s the Difference?
Here’s where writers get whiplash: A character can be public domain under copyright but still protected by trademark in certain contexts.
Basically:
Copyright protects creative expression for a limited time, then expires.
Trademark protects consumers from being confused about who made something, and can last indefinitely if it’s actively used. For example, the Mickey Mouse from Steamboat Willie is in the public domain, but you can’t make a tee shirt with it because Disney owns the trademark.
What that means for you:
You can often use public domain characters in your stories (books/films/art) as long as you’re not implying sponsorship or official branding.
Where people get in trouble is branding and merchandise, especially if it looks official. Trademark focuses on marketplace confusion.
A simple disclaimer can help reduce risk: “This work is not produced, sponsored, or endorsed by X.”
Think of the legalese like this: copyright is the library card that expires; trademark is the official uniform you can’t borrow to sell your own toys.
A Quick Word on “Why Now?”
U.S. copyright terms have been extended over time. A major modern change was the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which lengthened terms (including the well-known “95 years from publication” framework for many older works), contributing to a long pause before new works began entering the public domain again in 2019.
Action Steps: Your Public Domain Checklist
Not legal advice, just smart creator habits:
Pick your target (a book, character, song, film, painting). Start with Duke University’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain annual list.
Verify the U.S. public domain status by checking the publication date in the Library of Congress.
Work from the actual public domain source (the 1930 text, the early strip, the original film).
Avoid later iconic additions that might still be protected (design changes, catchphrases, character quirks).
Keep a paper trail: save screenshots/links/notes on what edition you used and why you believe it’s public domain.
The Takeaway
Every January 1, the creative sandbox expands. So get creating! And have fun.
I have taken a couple of her workshops and her mystery teachings are incredible. If you are interested in writing cozy mysteries as movies or books, I highly recommend this bundle.
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On this day in 1812, brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published the first volume of stories that would make them famous. Among the stories that became known as Grimm's Fairy Tales are “Hansel and Gretel,” “Snow White,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” and “Sleeping Beauty.” As folklorists, they didn’t write these stories; they recorded them. These fairy tales are an ancient oral tradition, stories that were told to teach lessons and entertain. They are in our bones, which is why they are still popular today. For hints about how to use fairy tales to inspire your stories, check out this article.
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If this blog adds a little spark to your writing week, would you consider buying me a coffee? Your support helps me keep creating practical, joyful resources for writers and start earning money today!
