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Learn to Write Like You Mean It

Join 500+ writers, creatives, misfits, and weirdos and learn to write like you mean it in 10 minutes a week. Get ONE practical tip, story, or shenanigan every Tuesday + a creative goodie bag on Friday šŸ––šŸ¼

A very pretty but very dead jellyfish on a sandy beach. It has dots around the edge like a grandma’s doily, and four white discs in the middle in a clover pattern. The rest is transparent, and there are a few danglies.
Featured Post

Post-holiday no-mans-land

Reading time: 0.58 230 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, I’m in that weird post-holiday marshmallow-brain state of what day is it and what am I doing here. This is not helped by the fact that it’s 29C today and I just want to read my book in the sunshine and admire my new ankle bracelet made from silver and sea glass and little silver starfish that I bought from St David’s market. I was on the hunt for bits and bobs for my journal and I found, among the surfer stickers and...

Reading time: 3.43 884 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, Say it with me: MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS. You cannot tell me that the algorithm isn’t literally (and I do mean literally) damaging our brains. I open up Instagram and LinkedIn (and I don’t even go near TikTok) to see the following in this order: ā€œI asked ChatGPTā€ Frogs doing frog things Wars Ads for plastic shit from Temu Sabrina Carpenter opinions (at the same intensity as wars) Manufactured outrage about a vulnerable...

Reading time: 5.08 1,220 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, We need to talk about bestsellers. Bestsellers are hyped; books are written. Lemme say that again. We don’t write bestsellers, we write books. Then we market the shit out of them in hopes they’ll become a bestseller. There are courses out there that proclaim promises like ā€œwrite your bestseller with usā€ or even ā€œwrite your bestseller in a week/month/insert improbable time periodā€ and they really grate my carrot. Let’s...

Image of the book ā€œDon’t Eat the Frogā€ in front of a cheese plant and a notebook.

Reading time: 1.24 330 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, Occasionally I wake up at 4am in a cold sweat, as I vividly recall that time I silenced a crowded restaurant by making the following suggestion to my friend: ā€œWell why don’t you just open up your legs and stuff it all in?ā€ It’s not what you’re thinking. It really isn’t. What had happened was, we’d been talking about weird things adults say to kids, like ā€œcuriosity killed the catā€ and ā€œyou must have hollow legs because...

The stunning album sleeve for Fleetwood Mac’s Tango in the Night album.

Reading time: 5.06 1,213 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, Things I don’t miss about the past: Cassette tapes getting tangled up and ruining the mix-tape you made DJs talking over the end of songs when you tried to record the Top 40 Rotary phones (who has time to wait for it to click all the way back round from 0) Things I do miss about the past: Not being instantly contactable (leave me alone) Proper snow Listening to albums the way the artist intended I’m so happy vinyl is...

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Reading time: 2.34 608 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, My signature course, MicroBook Magic, wouldn’t even exist without this brilliant human: So of course she came along and wrote a couple of books with me. Here’s her story: Misty is Executive Director, North Durham Chamber of Commerce and CEO of Trifecta Sales Systems. She’s also the author of How to Be a Thick-Skinned Email Marketer and the upcoming How to Be a Thick-Skinned Salesperson The problem: Sales was sabotaging...

Reading time: 2.24 569 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, You’re not for everyone. Nor am I. And that’s not only okay, it’s brilliant! There’s not enough time or energy in the world for one person to help everyone. So, you probably don’t wanna work with me if: You want a guaranteed bestseller (check out my upcoming Tuesday email for ALL the details on bestsellers and how they happen) You want a book in a weekend (I’m not here for that — you can tell when someone’s written...

Rory Sutherland is a middle-aged white man on a stage with a cut out pineapple reading ā€œAtomiconā€ and a big disco ball. Above him is a screen with a slide reading: Rather than trying to change the world, we can change how people see the world. When people

Reading time: 1.57 463 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, Sometimes, when I’m feeling super enthusiastic or fired up, I want to change the world. I want to fix everything that’s wrong with it. Eliminate suffering caused by humans. Eradicate war and hunger. Nuke from orbit people who watch YouTube videos on their phones on full volume without headphones in public places. Eradicate horseflies. That kind of thing. Then I think about the magnitude of that task and want to crawl...

Reading time: 1.14 292 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, Let’s imagine, just for a moment, that we live in a Star Trek-esque utopia. There’s no money (except maybe Ferengis with Gold Pressed Latinum), everyone has their basic needs met, and everyone has a role or a job or a function that suits who they are, what they can do, and what they want to do. Given all that, here’s my question: What would you create if money wasn’t an issue? Really give this some thought. I’m not...

Reading time: 5.01 1,193 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, I love train journeys but I swear to the little baby frogspawn that some people need yeeting out of the train window. Like the woman I sat across from on the way to Newcastle on Monday morning. Who was clipping her nails. On the train. AND THE NAIL CLIPPINGS WERE PINGING ACROSS THE TABLE. What in the world of dragged-up-by-trash-pandas was happening here? My coffee tasted just fine without the piquant coffee art of...