Frequently Asked Questions

Questions about 12 Stories? 

During sign-up, simply nominate which day of the week you’d like to receive your 12 Stories over the 12 week period. You’ll receive a welcome email, and following that, there’s nothing more to do except to get excited for the arrival of your Week 1 resources on the day you’ve nominated (and on the same day for the next 11 weeks after that!).

Yes, absolutely – it’s a really popular option! It’s the perfect idea for a parent or grandparent whose stories you’d love to know. During sign-up, you have the option to indicate that you’re purchasing the project as a gift for another person. After purchase, you receive the welcome email ready for sharing with your loved one. When they’re ready to begin the project, they just need to use the link from your welcome email to sign themselves up.

The whole idea of the 12 Stories project is that it’s achievable. It’s really up to you, but, as a guide, we’d suggest allowing 1 or 2 hours per week (so, 12-24 hours total over the 12 week project duration).

As a guide, aim for around 300-500 words. That way, you’ll have the chance to paint the picture and build the reader’s understanding of your memory. It’s an achievable number too – definitely possible in an hour on two at most. Lastly, around 500 words should fit on one or two pages (if typed) and maybe two or three A4 pages if you’re handwriting – a nice length for your reader to enjoy.

Each week, the project materials will be sent to the email address you provide when you sign up. If you’re working digitally, you’ll use the ‘Digital’ file versions (once you’re done, save your work or print your completed story pages). If you’d prefer to complete your writing by hand, simply open and print the ‘Handwriting’ file versions. For those with a preference for handwriting, you could source a beautiful journal to use instead of the template.

Yes, and we’ve made it simple for you! One of the standout features of the 12 Stories project is our free digital collation service. Once you’ve completed your writing, we can bring your stories together into a polished, easy-to-share digital format – included in your up-front project payment.

Your completed digital booklet will be 28 pages total:

  • Front cover
  • Contents page
  • Introduction/dedication
  • 12 Stories/images (2 pages per story, including up to 2 images)
  • Back cover

Of course, there are many other ways to bring your life writing collection to life, and it’s entirely up to you to decide what works best. To help with your decision, we include our ‘Guide to Collating and Publishing’ in your Week 1 materials (we’ll send it again in Week 12 too!). This guide outlines five creative options for finalising your collection, from keeping it as a handwritten journal to professionally publishing a hard copy of your stories.

You can read more about the five possible publishing options in our blog.

But remember, no matter which path you choose, our free digital collation service ensures you’ll always have a beautifully assembled version of your stories ready to share.

Accessibility is important for everyone and we’ve found a terrific support resource if writing isn’t for you. Turboscribe (https://turboscribe.ai/) offers free audio-to-text transcription for recordings of up to 30 minutes. Once you’ve decided on your writing idea for the week’s focus, you could ‘speak’ your story aloud and Turboscribe will convert it to writing. Hey presto – you’ve captured your story for the week! Also, this is a great resource if you are helping someone with their 12 Stories – simply record their story and Turboscribe will transcribe it for you and the story teller!

We get it. Overcoming the ‘I don’t have anything worth sharing’ hurdle can be a little tricky (that pesky self-doubt!), but we see time and again that the simple act of a person choosing to put their stories in writing is in itself such a special gift (to yourself) and others.

Also, don’t assume people ‘already know’ your stories or worry about being boring. The fact is that they may not have heard your stories, they may have forgotten them, or you may have never shared them before. Simply having the story out of your head and in writing is going to be valuable beyond belief.

Go for it! While we’ve created the project to support you to write a single extended response each week, we’d love nothing more than to think that you’ve been inspired to write additional stories on any of the weekly topics.

No, there’s no requirement for you to submit what you’ve written anywhere. You might choose to share it with a family member or friend (or even in the 12 Stories private Facebook group), but no-one is going to be checking on what you’ve done.

Having said that, at the end of the 12 weeks, we’ll ask you to pop us through a quick feedback survey – as we’d love to hear how your 12 Stories writing project went.

The entire 12-week project – including the weekly emails and all project materials – is a one-off and all-inclusive fee of $120 (AUD) paid at the commencement of the project. This also includes the option to access our free digital booklet collation service!

What makes 12 Stories different (and better, we think!) is that you don’t feel overloaded and overwhelmed with everything all at once. By breaking the project into 12 weekly bite-sized pieces, including the weekly email, which acts as a gentle reminder as well as containing the new week’s focus topic, we’ve found it’s much easier to make your way to the end. You’ll also be excited about receiving your weekly email and motivated to keep going.

That being said, if you do find yourself in a circumstance where time is of the essence and you’d like to access all project materials up front, we can help. Please email us at hello@12stories.com.au for more information.