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Hey Reader,

“OPTIMIZE YOUR SLEEP!!!” screamed the subject line and my toes curled so hard they snapped off and flew into orbit, escaped the Earth’s gravity, and were last seen belting past the moons of Jupiter.

Together with my final nerve.

I don’t want to optimise my fucking sleep.

I don’t want some stunted little techbro getting involved with my life even when I’m UNCONSCIOUS.

I want to sit on lush green grass in the dappled shade and make daisy chains while sipping homemade lemonade and writing my book long-hand with my favourite pen while someone brings me a big pile of freshly baked foccacia and tomatoes I’ve grown with my own two hands.

If I could do that, I wouldn’t NEED to optimise my sleep because I’d be living as humans should.

Of course, what’ll actually happen is I’ll get headbutted by my dickhead sheep but a girl can dream.

I want, in short, to be a human and do human things humanly.

When we bought our ancient cottage, people asked us if we were going to knock it down and build a new house on the site and I’m sure my face said exactly what I thought of that. Other people asked us why we weren’t just buying somewhere that was already pristine.

Aside from the fact that I don’t like new-build houses, they missed the point. We wanted to restore a home and make it ours, be part of its history. We wanted to do something hard but cool.

“Why write when you could just use ChatGPT?”

“Oh, I’ll just ChatGPT this, it’ll be easier.”

“Erk ug.”

This is the progression nobody wants.

Why write? Because I LOVE to write. Because I hate to write. Because it’s hard. Because to think is human.

Why run a 10km race when I could just get a bus?

Why make an oak door when we could just go to B&Q and buy a shitty soulless one?

Why do anything hard at all, in fact, when we could just optimise the humanity out of everything?

Every single time someone says, “I asked an AI and…” my heart sinks a little further because they’ve just made their lives short-term easier, but not richer.

Asking an AI should be the LAST resort, not the first.

You have great ideas. Trust yourself. Trust your human brain. Trust the other humans around you, who you can talk with and bounce ideas off.

Allow yourself to be wrong, and make mistakes, and do it badly before you do it well because that is the human thing to do.

Find the process that works for you and allows you to express what you want to express.

And if that’s hard — and I know it is because I’ve spent my life in it — find someone you can trust to guide you.

This is what I do, and I do it WELL.

I won’t let you shrink yourself with tools you don’t need.

I’ll push you to do the hard things and show you how to use tools that make the other bits easier.

And when we’re done and you have your book in your hand, you’ll be prouder of yourself than you ever thought possible.

If this sounds good, I have 2 options for you in May:

1. A Book Breakthrough VIP Day. This is for writers who are DONE with having a half-finished manuscript haunting them and ready to actually get this book finished.
2. A Book Breakthrough: Unlocked session. Get started in 90 minutes. This is for writers who are over procrastination and ready to get their book out of their head and onto the page.

In the meantime, I’ll be over here in the sunshine, helping people write themselves into existence.

TTFN,

Vicky 🫡

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