What is 'Flaw Work' in the Development of Your Project?

Take a nice little dip in Lake You

Hi folks!

As some of you may have noticed, I skipped this week’s Monday and Wednesday posts. I fibbed a little in my Tuesday post - I apologize for that! In my Tuesday newsletter, I mentioned that I would combine the writing prompt posts with my Wednesday assignments and exercises newsletters. Well…that still felt too complicated. So going forward we will be sending out newsletters on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Much simpler. Less emails for you to filter through, but the same amount of content I normally send. I’ll present lots of goodies for my free subscribers, and plenty more for my paid subscribers. With that said, let’s get into today’s post.

I’ve been a busy guy lately! I hosted a two-day online writing retreat with my Story Farm Professional Program writers this past weekend. It was filled with writing prompts, lectures, workshopping, and lots of quiet writing time. I love hosting retreats, whether they’re live or online, and I stressed the importance of writing retreats in my ISA webinar on “How To Get Noticed in the Industry” yesterday (Wednesday the 23rd). Here’s the recording to that webinar if you’d like to watch.

I will stress the point again. Do yourself a favor and plan to attend some kind of writing retreat in 2025. You could get a group of friends together, rent an AirBnB, and have a writing weekend for yourselves. Or just do this alone in some comfy wooded setting with chilly mornings and toasty afternoons. You need to be investing in yourself and your career.

I get it. Finances can be tight sometimes, and it does cost a pretty penny to go away for a weekend, a few days, leave your life behind, etc. But it’s possible to plan for it way ahead of time, and by planning for it you can set yourself a deadline to have a certain bit of work completed before you then set off for your writing excursion.

As some of you may know, The Story Farm was founded with retreats in mind - hence the name, I host an annual writing retreat on an old farm, in an old barndominium, in Wisconsin every year. It’s actually part of my Professional Program and I offer long term payment plans that not only give you access to attending the retreat, but ongoing bi-weekly group workshops throughout the year. The workshops allow the writers to form strong relationships and friendships with the people who will be attending the retreat (and by the time they arrive at the retreat, they already know the people in attendance). They’re so successful, so fun, incredibly creative, and they keep getting better every year. And in 2025, I plan on hosting FOUR retreats, all part of the Story Farm program, now called the Retreat Pro Membership. Click that link to find out more. The membership is application-based or invite-only, so I’m highly selective as to who I bring into the membership. I’m looking for writers who A) intend to make this craft of screenwriting a long-term career, and B) writers who have finished at least three screenplays. If you have questions and want to apply, email me: max@thestoryfarm.org

Whether you pay to attend a retreat, or host one for yourself, it will be one of the healthiest and happiest decisions you make for your 2025 writing pursuits. I promise. The world is so noisy, busy, layered with struggle and problems and worry…but we don’t have to allow those issues to filter in and settle within us. We can acknowledge them, notice that they exist, but we can learn how to put up boundaries around ourselves so that the heaviness of the world doesn’t resonate so loudly that our lives are negatively affected because of it. We do actually have control over how we react to and interact with the world.

Even though the writing prompt exercises today are for our paid subscribers, I will give everyone a little prompt. You can write about this, or you can just think about it throughout the day.

• What scares you? Why? What if you were confronted with it today? How would you respond?

And I don’t mean the extreme fears like drowning, trapped in a coffin, falling off the Empire State Building (I mean…those are awfully terrifying possibilities, but I would argue we’re all likely afraid of those things). The writing exercise for the paid subscribers today focuses on diving into elements of the above prompt, in order to consider any and all similarities you might have with your story’s main character. But from a general place of personal growth, I firmly believe that if we examine the little fears within us; the little things that bring us worry or concern and then look at them from a disconnected place, the fears just don’t seem so powerful anymore. They’re still there. They still exist. We will still need to confront them, but if we can look at them as a simple observer, their power over us will deplete. So try it out. Journal about it if you’d like. Meditate on it - whatever is easiest, but don’t ignore them. Don’t let them fester within you.

Like the main character in your story, they will have to be faced in one way or another, today or tomorrow, some day. So be the hero of your own adventure and take them on.

Maybe a writing retreat can help you do that.

If you have questions about my retreats, please email me: max@thestoryfarm.org or reach out through my website.

Have a lovely Thursday, everyone! As a reminder, I am still offering a 50% discount to upgrade to a paid subscription here on Substack. You can click the button below to find out more about it, and upgrade if you’d like.