A Writer’s Credo:
- Embrace the blank page: See it not as an empty space, but as a canvas ripe with potential.
- Write with honesty: Let your authentic voice shine through, even when it’s uncomfortable.
- Read voraciously: Immerse yourself in the works of others to learn and be inspired.
- Observe the world: Pay attention to the details of everyday life, they are the seeds of great stories.
- Revise relentlessly: Be willing to tear apart your work to make it stronger.
- Never stop learning: Seek out new perspectives and challenge yourself to grow as a writer.
- Respect the craft: Understand that writing is a process that requires dedication and discipline.
- Find your community: Connect with other writers to share feedback and support.
- Believe in your story: Have faith in the power of your words to resonate with readers.
- Write for yourself first: Create work that fulfills you, even if it doesn’t please everyone.
Towards a Daily Writing Practice: A Credo from a Storyteller’s Perspective
By Nicholas Andriani
I believe in the power of stories as the foundation of human experience. My background in archaeology, mythology, and paleontology, paired with my deep dive into narrative design and game theory, informs everything I do as a writer, designer, and scholar. Like the artifacts we unearth, stories are fragments—pieces of a larger picture we must carefully excavate, interpret, and reconstruct.
Writing is not magic, and inspiration is not something that strikes like lightning. Rather, I’ve come to embrace writing as a practice, much like the repetitive tasks in archaeological digs or game development. There is a ritualistic quality to it—each draft a layer of excavation, each sentence a shard of pottery being cleaned and pieced together. I believe in what I call the ritual of creation: a commitment to returning to the page, to the world you’re building, to the story you’re shaping, even when it’s hard, even when it feels like you’ve hit bedrock.
In my journey, I’ve also drawn parallels between my work and the philosophies of play and interactive narrative design. Play and ritual are entwined—both involve structure, repetition, and a kind of immersion that allows us to explore and expand our understanding of ourselves and the world. Whether I’m sketching out a game concept, designing an educational simulation, or putting pen to paper for a poem, I understand that the act of creation is more than just output—it’s a process of inquiry and reflection. As Seamus Heaney once did with his drafts of Punishment, each revision is an act of discovery. I am not just writing; I am engaging with the deeper questions of what it means to be human.
I believe in a daily practice rooted in this philosophical approach. The body and mind must be conditioned, as they are with yoga or martial arts. The physical act of writing is part of that—whether it’s scrawling in a notebook or typing at a keyboard. But beyond that, I believe in living life with a writer’s eye, always observing, collecting, and cataloging ideas, much as I did in my previous career as an archaeologist. This attention to detail and the daily practice of writing is what brings the fragments of our ideas to life, whether in a novel, a screenplay, or a narrative-driven game.
When we approach writing as a ritual and a daily discipline, it becomes more than an act of creation. It becomes a mirror, reflecting our own growth, thoughts, and development over time. Like my work with educational game design, it’s iterative. And in that practice, I find meaning, whether in the creation of new worlds through storytelling or the discovery of old ones through research and reflection.
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