Write Like Hell is an aggressive, one-year course of accountability and community designed to take your writing life to its next level faster than you dreamed you could. 

Before I get into the details, though, there’s one thing I want to make clear.

You don’t actually need me to perform the Write Like Hell Challenge. The core concept is simple. It consists of just two steps:

Step One: Make several promises to yourself, promises which will move you inexorably from the writer you are today toward the writer you want to be.

Step Two: Keep those promises.

That’s all the Write Like Hell Challenge is. It’s powerful, and I think it’s important. I think it’s so important that you can email me to get the syllabus for free. You can do it on your own, because I’d rather you do it without paying me anything than you not do it at all.

That said, you’re more likely to succeed if you do it with me. I say that because Write Like Hell provides four important supports to help you make things happen. 

• • We work together to set aggressive but attainable goals for your writing, publicity, personal wellness, and a fourth category you determine. 

• • I teach  you everything I know, and put you in touch with people who know more than me, so you have all the tools you need to reach the goals you set.
  • I encourage, inspire, remind, cajole, harass, harry, chivvy, vex, and irk you on a regular basis to keep you on track.
  • You join a community of like-minded, success-oriented writers on the same journey, who support one another as much as they can. 

It’s one Hell of a year (see what I did there? I kill me.) But you’ll come out of it knowing you’re capable of far more than you imagine, and with the tools to make it happen.

Fair warning: It ain’t easy. And it ain’t cheap. It’s up to you to decide if it’s worth it.

Why Is This Happening?

Let’s start with the long game.

Within four years, I want to create an organization that serves writers and other freelance creatives. This organization celebrates and leverages the Twin Super Powers of freelance creatives:

Super Power #1: Time and Location Independence. You can do your work from anywhere in the world, at the times that best suit you. This means I get to coach my son’s chess team because I’m not at work when it’s in session. It also means that, if a library in Missouri got flooded out, I could go help without asking a boss for permission.

Super Power #2: Fan Base. Whether they’re clients, coaching customers, or book-buying fans, professional creatives have a group of fans willing to support their efforts. It’s how I make a consistent living. It also means that, if I wanted to go help that library, I could talk 50 people into donating $20 each toward the cause.

This organization will first and foremost help freelance creatives succeed so they can enjoy those superpowers every day. Secondly, it will exist to annually leverage those superpowers via a “service convention” where we get together to Save the Freakin’ World (™) and also learn about how to further our careers.

When that library gets flooded, I want to show up with 20 authors and $20,000 to spend a week putting it right. Reliably. Year after year.

Creating that starts with Write Like Hell, a year where I help build 24 of the kinds of authors who might participate in making that goal a reality. If you’re just in it for the year, your tuition will help me focus my efforts on building it. If you stick around, you’ll be in on the ground floor of something that can make the world a better place.

A Bit of Story

I stole this idea wholesale from Tom Callos’s Ultimate Black Belt Test, which leveraged the Twin Superpowers of Martial Arts School Owners (Immense Energy and Student Body) toward much the same ends.

I participated in “UBBT” three times. It was incredibly aggressive. A portion of the requirements included:

• • 50,000 pushups and situps

• • Running 1,000 miles

• • Completing 150 hours of cross-training

• • Apologizing to somebody I had wronged
  • Achieving 12 “personal victories”

Here’s what I learned most from UBBT. It created a paradigm shift in what I believed was a reasonable amount of effort to put into my dreams, and of what I believed was possible to achieve. My experience there is why I was able to go full-time as a writer less than a year after deciding to try it.

I want to give that experience to you. Now, UBBT was a professional and commercial education program. It cost me almost $10,000 all told. Write Like Hell won’t be cheap. But it won’t be that expensive.

Similarly, it demanded nearly 15 hours a week of effort, but much of that effort synched seamlessly with the life of a martial arts school owner. I realize most people in Write Like Hell will have jobs and lives. It will require time and commitment, but not that much.

Why You Should Work With Me

“Jason Brick has authored, co-authored, ghostwritten, or edited 44 published books, and over 4,000 online and print articles. He speaks internationally to businesses about writing, and to writers about business.”

Or at least that’s what my bio tells me.

More importantly, my background is what makes me good for this. Before hanging out my shingle as a writer, I taught martial arts for over a decade. Inspiring, coaching, and providing accountability for folks is one of my best things, and I want you to help me start using it to make the world more awesome.

How I Suck

Over the past three years, I have tried various iterations of this with middling success, for free. If you’ve tried it, you’ll recognize the pattern.

We’d start strong, but then I wouldn’t be as present as I had promised or wished. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to. I just needed to earn a living first. That sometimes meant my absence for days at a time, and less engagement with each participant than I liked.

Which is why I’m charging this time around. The income I get from this will mean I can devote 20 hours a week to helping you get where you want to go. It will be my job, and I always do my job very, very well.

TL/DR: The Bottom Line

Here’s what you’ll get:

• • A year of coaching, accountability, community, and guidance to change your writing life forever.

• • Access to and contact with industry professionals who can lift you up.

• • A fundamental shift in what you believe yourself to be capable of.
  • My unflinching support and undying gratitude.

Here’s what it will cost;

• • 5-10 hours of your life once a week for one year.

• • Total commitment to improving your writing life.
  • $299/month or $3,000 as an upfront lump sum. This is not cheap. It’s an investment in your future as a writer, and costs a lot less than an MFA.