Lia Aprile on LinkedIn: Years ago I took a tv writing workshop where I learned how to compare… (2024)

It's good to work for people you admire. Abby Murray is one... (Of all the great things I could say about writing for storyarb, it's the people that make it exceptional. I'm honestly not sure what wizardry Abby and Alex Lieberman performed to gather together so many wildly talented creatives in one place, but I'm daily humbled by getting to be even a small part of what they're building.)Anyhoo...the point: As a mom to three kids myself, and in the process of de-velcro-ing myself from my oldest's every move (in order to gift her with the independence and accountability she's due)...I needed to hear this. I needed to be reminded that it's okay to do less. It's okay to not always track or prod or poke or encourage. It's okay to apply great parenting to the things that matter, and "C+" parenting to everything else...Maybe you need to be reminded, too? If so...read on:

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Everyone's moaning about the milk-toast posting on LinkedIn, but...I've actually found audiences sort of...discerning? Here's what I've learned from a couple years of semi-regular posting:💼 People want "value," but not too much. If it's ALL value they sorta tuuuuuuuuuuuune out.🍿 They also want stories, but they don't want disconnected stories-for-stories-sake kinda stories. They want connections. 🌈 Inspirational is great, but it better have some freakin' teeth. Ooey-gooey sentiment isn't going to fly. 🧐 Long is just fine, as long as it's good. And readable. 🤪 Short is also fine. Any length is fine. People don't care about length, they care about good. 🏆 Oh yeah, it needs to be good. For all the aggravating cookie-cutter advice that runs rampant on this platform, there is actually a pretty high bar for quality. Or maybe that's just me and the audience of smarty-pantses I've been lucky enough to cultivate. They have standards. They want unexpected. Insightful. Takes from the side or the top or the inside-out fun house mirror. I've really made my own life more difficult by attracting them, but also...it gives me faith in our collective barometer for what's worth our time and what isn't. Also they're amazing and inspiring (but not toooo inspiring.)If you're new to this platform or still finding your feet you have two options:• you can fall for the nonsense post-ers and post nonsense and create an audience of bots and their friends, OR• you can start with high-enough standards, attract likeminded others, and go along for the ride as the bar continues to lift.I know which one I'd choose. #LinkedInStrategy #HighBars **✨ I'm Lia. I write about the creative process, writing for writers, and how to bring your authentic self to your freelance work. I also write scripts, content, and social for agencies, founders, and opinion leaders.🔔 Follow me for more about all the whats and whys of writing.

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Advice for a stuck writer...1. 𝗙𝗹𝗶𝗽 𝗶𝘁. Take your very last sentence and make it your first one. 2. 𝗗𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱, 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸. That paragraph that you've been sweating over? Maybe it's not meant to be a paragraph. Maybe it's only a sentence.3. 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗢𝗩. Go wider, or more narrow. Find an omniscient narrator or write it from the perspective of an unexpected player. View it from the future or the past--pretend you, the writer, are someone else entirely and write as them. 4. 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗰𝗵𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆. Tell things out of order. Start from the end and move backwards, or jump in right in the middle and resist the urge to fill in any gaps. 5. 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗮 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗼. Pick your favorite sentence in the whole bunch, the one that encapsulates everything about the story you're telling or how you want to be telling it. Delete everything that comes before, and write forward from there. 6. 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳. Set a timer and write three versions: a safe one, a crazy one, and a funny one. If you're working on something long-form then do this experiment with just the first section or page. Go as far afield as you can with the "crazy" version. Nothing better for shaking loose some old clay.7. 𝗭𝗼𝗼𝗺 𝗼𝘂𝘁. Stop everything you're doing and ask and answer the following questions: who is this for? what do I want them to walk away thinking/feeling/knowing? Do not proceed until you have a clear and specific answer. 8. 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗮 𝗯𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗸 𝗱𝗼𝗰𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁. I know some scriptwriters who start every new draft with a blank page. They believe that what was working, will stick. If you're really laboring over something, try to start fresh. Even if you end up writing a version of exactly the same thing, it'll probably end up better. 9. 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗮 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱. Take whatever you've written so far and read it aloud, with performance energy, to anyone you can find who will listen. Print it out and keep a colored pen with you. Mark any sentence/paragraph/moment where you stumble as you read. Change those things.10. 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗲𝘀. What can you say without more words? Can you use visuals, design elements or formatting choices to accomplish what you're trying to accomplish with prose or dialogue? If you're not using dialogue...can you? It's like inserting music into an otherwise quiet room.#StuckWriters #WritersBlock **✨ I'm Lia. I write about the creative process, writing for writers, and how to bring your authentic self to your freelance work. I also write scripts, content, and social for agencies, founders, and opinion leaders. 🔔 Follow me for more about all the whats and whys of writing.

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At my house we talk a lot about "the fear of future regret."I'm certain my husband uncovered this gem of a phrase, and it's been on the conversational top shelf ever since. The fear of future regret creates a special kind of paralysis. "I'm afraid to make this decision, for fear that future me will look back in anger on present me."Nothing will keep your feet rooted in place longer. Also, what a tricky mind we all have, right? Because the whole idea that we could predict our future regret assumes that there is one right choice and one wrong one and that...in most cases...just isn't true.As creative people, as business owners or solopreneurs or freelancers just stepping into the fray, we have a lot of decisions to make.To take a gig or not to take a gig.To follow that instinct or not.Play it safe or not.Share or not.Risk or not.Try or not.We can pace living rooms or kitchens or fairways of parks and use our mighty creative powers to try and predict what's going to happen and how and which imaginary future scenario will make us happier, but...Most of that is wasted time that could be used to step forward instead of in circles.I had a decision to make this week and I consulted with some trusted friends and advisors as I hem-hawed. They each had "tricks" to help me determine what I really wanted to do.Draw two boxes, each one representing one of the choices and stand in each, imagining you've made that choice. See how you feel.Flip a coin, each side representing a choice, let it land. See how you feel.And while a younger me might have spent a day box-drawing and coin-flipping, today me realized two "fundamental truths at the exact same tiiiiiiiiiiime." (IYKYK)1. There is no right decision2. There is no wrong decisionIf you're going to live a creative life there is a certain amount of getting comfortable in the gray that's required.Sometimes saying yes to something will feel scary.Sometimes saying no to something will feel scary.But we have to stop thinking of decisions as expressways to alien planets wherein we will lose all that makes our lives good and worthy (or wait, am I the only one who does this?)A decision is just a step. There are many before and many after. Instead of focusing on making the right one, maybe it's worth just making them, period. Full stop. As many as possible, as often as possible. So that we are moving, acting, and reacting instead of stuck in place...imagining a future regret that may never come to pass. #CreativeDecisions**✨ I'm Lia. I write about the creative process, writing for writers, and how to bring your authentic self to your freelance work. I also write scripts, content, and social for agencies, founders, and opinion leaders. 🔔 Follow me for more about all the whats and whys of writing.

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I listened to my husband make call after call...A client had swip-swapped the scope of a video project and he was suddenly under the gun to find a 3D animator who could get something turned around and fast. I only got to hear his end of the conversation, but the winning vendor was clear to me as he roulette-dialed through his recommendations. - It was the one who he didn't have to re-explain his problem to.- the one who set a meeting for later that same day.- the one who I could tell made his shoulders drop. As I listened I thought about how when you're in a bind, crunched for time, what matters most is trust:Do I trust that this person can get this done in time?Do I trust that they'll get close to *right*, right away?Am I going to have to hold their hand, or can they take it and run? I have a lot of clients who rely on me to turn things around fast. Sometimes that means in a week. Sometimes it means the next morning. Once in awhile I jump in and turn things around Same. Dang. Day. I don't mind doing this, for lots of reasons.- I have clients I love. - There is mutual trust. - They pay me well enough that I feel "rush service" is included.It also doesn't hurt that I am, as one client informed me, "comfortable in the unknown." (translation: I can make a lot from a whole little. I took this as high compliment.) But it got me wondering how needed this service is out in the world at large? So I'm officially adding it to my list of client offerings. Shameless plug: If you've got a rush writing job and you don't know where to turn. 👋 Look no further. Fellow writers, if you don't offer quick turnarounds, maybe consider adding it to your list of services. I'm pretty sure the need is out there...#RushWriting**✨ I'm Lia. I write about the creative process, writing for writers, and how to bring your authentic self to your freelance work. I also write scripts, content, and social for agencies, founders, and opinion leaders. 🔔 Follow me for more about all the whats and whys of writing.

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My son's nature camp director thinks I'm one of "those moms."You know the ones? Can't get their sh$t together. Flying by the seat of their pants. Leaving the house in a hurricane of barely-packed lunches and mismatched shoes.A mess of a mom. A flake of a mom.Before camp started, the camp director sent a long email. In the email he laid out all the dos-and-donts and musts-and-must-nots for camp. I read the email. Three times. And yet...❄ I forgot to print and sign the form he asked us to please print and sign for the first day of camp.🤪 I asked whether or not there was an emergency number. There was. It was in the email. When I asked, said director barely hid an eye-roll and pronounced to the near-empty parking lot that, "If people care, they should really read the emails."I nodded politely and walked away and then spent my entire drive home thinking of snappy come-backs. And my final faux paus:😨 I forgot to let them know my son wouldn't be there the last day of camp, even though the email made it very clear that they needed to know ahead of time if anyone was going to be absent as they would be waiting for that child to arrive before heading off into the muddy wilderness. That last one was the nail in the coffin.There was no coming back. For a few hours after this final humiliation I raked myself over my handmade coals. I'm a bit of an A-student personality type, I don't tend to gloss over or forget things, so it hurt. He had me pegged all wrong!! I'm a form-printer. An email-reader.A call-if-my-kid-will-be-absent-er.I felt wounded by the assumed judgment. And then...I remembered that it truly does not matter what this man thinks of my parenting. Or my organization skills. We all drop balls. We all have weeks...or months...where we make stupid mistakes or overlook things that are right in front of our face or just do exactly the wrong thing. Sometimes three times in a row.Those things don't define our value. I'm (excuse my language) a kick-ass mom. I love my kids with a ferocity that's going to keep them grounded in their own worth for their entire lives. I show up. Full stop. So it is one-hundred percent okay if sometimes I forget the baseball snacks or let my kid walk out of the house without his hair combed or go to the wrong place at the wrong time for some kid-related event. (All things I've done.)And it's okay if you do that, too.Remember that, next time you biff it. In your home life or your work life. Because chances are, someone standing in line behind you as you explain why you forgot to print the form you were supposed to print, has also forgotten theirs... #FlakeMom**✨ I'm Lia. I write about the creative process, writing for writers, and how to bring your authentic self to your freelance work. I also write scripts, content, and social for agencies, founders, and opinion leaders. 🔔 Follow me for more about all the whats and whys of writing.

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They say you should give people a glimpse into your world: Mom?Mom?MOM?MOMMMMMMMMMMMMMY! Mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom.MOM!!!!Mom? Mom? Mom? MOMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!Mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy.Babe? Mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy.There you are. You now live in my house. #MomLife**✨ I'm Lia. I write about the creative process, writing for writers, and how to bring your authentic self to your freelance work. I also write scripts, content, and social for agencies, founders, and opinion leaders. 🔔 Follow me for more about all the whats and whys of writing.

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Honestly, my writing career didn't take off until I handled my 💩...I had to learn how to get kind to myself.I won't bore you with all the details--because it took a lot of years and a lot of support--but the thing I taught myself to do that changed EVERYTHING was:To tolerate my uncomfortable feelings.So that I could feel pain, rejection, embarrassment, envy, aggravation, injustice, self-doubt, disappointment and fear without doing or saying or thinking anything to make those feelings go away.I know it sounds...simplistic. But it changed my life. Because learning how to feel--really really feel, like the way a hand can feel a feather or a stomach can feel hunger or a body can feel the warm steady ground--opened up a vast space. One that used to be filled by all the tactics and strategies I'd developed to avoid those same sticky feelings. Wanna know what that space got filled with instead? Confidence.The kind that can only come from knowing that your heart and mind and nervous system are capable, that in fact you are a feelings feeling warrior.Because once you know that you can tolerate even the wildest wickedest leanings of your sensitive little ego...taking risks gets a whole lot easier.So does speaking up.Saying yes.Saying no. Asking for what you need.Shining your light on people other than yourself.Making space.Holding it for the people you care about.When you know how to work with your inner landscape--martian though it may be at first--you naturally get kinder.Because to tolerate hard feelings is to extend grace to yourself. If you can master that, just that and that alone: other things in life tend to line up in good and better ways. So, I dunno, if today...or this week...or this month is one where work feels punishing or non-existent or just not what you want it to be, you could just start by extending yourself a little bit of kindness.It could look like putting your own hand on your own heart.It could feel like noticing all the sharp and pokey bits without immediately reprimanding yourself for having sharp and pokey bits in the first place. It could start with just being with yourself and every single little uncontrollable feeling you've got and standing in kindness with her. Or him.If you can do this, you'll start to notice that some of the space that used to be packed full of discomfort has opened. You can put new things there.#HardFeelings**✨ I'm Lia. I write about the creative process, writing for writers, and how to bring your authentic self to your freelance work. I also write scripts, content, and social for agencies, founders, and opinion leaders. 🔔 Follow me for more about all the whats and whys of writing.

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We should probably all be more like Ryan Gosling...Apparently early in his career he figured out what it was people wanted from him (gonna hazard a guess: smoldering eyes, hint of the goof, heartthrob with a heart of gold)...and gave it to them.He didn't try to push against or defy expectations, he just figured out what his audience was naturally responding to and did more of that. I don't need to tell you how that story ends. 🎥 🌟 Figuring out what people like about you as an actor without descending into a whirlpool of self-obsession is a feat all by itself, not to mention doing it with the requisite spontaneity and range to keep things interesting...It takes time and a kind of openness of spirit to figure out what the thing is that you do that people like.Usually it's also the thing that comes most naturally to you. (Pro tip: if there's a thing that you do that you think can't possibly be it because that would just be too darn easy: it's that.)This little formula is what every creator, every brand, every everyone is looking to solve:What's my gift and how do I give it? Gift is a good word, and I reject any criticism of it being cheesy--because when you narrow in on the thing that you do that jazzes other people up it is, in fact, like giving them a gift. There are writers that know exactly how to do this. A few on here worth a follow:David Schermer tickles my absurdist funny bone. Mel Barfield gives me daily warm fuzzies. (Plus Ryan Reynolds already follows her so she's really just one degree away from Ryan Gosling anyhooo...)Paul Smart gets me thinking (and makes me realize how minute my own musical knowledge is)Liz Heflin is mentor-to-all Blair Sharp 🧀 makes every freelancer feel seeeeen. There's more, too many to name. But this is just a short ode to say to these writers/friends: keep doing what you're doing, and to all the rest of us: let's be more Gosling, shall we?#BeMoreGosling**✨ I'm Lia. I write about the creative process, writing for writers, and how to bring your authentic self to your freelance work. I also write scripts, content, and social for agencies, founders, and opinion leaders. 🔔 Follow me for more about all the whats and whys of writing.

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