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Hey Reader,

There’s a bramble in our porch. It started poking through a gap in the wall a few days ago and I kept forgetting to cut it off and pull it back through to the outside.

So it crept its way further in. And further. And now it’s in front of the glass door to the living room where we get a perfect view of the aphid farm.

Isn’t this cool?

This is ants farming aphids.

The aphids all congregate on the bramble stem, sucking away at the sap and sticking their little green aphid butts in the air, excreting sugary honeydew (which is a fancy name for aphid poo) and the ants cannot get enough of it.

It’s even cooler than that, though: the ants herd all the aphids to the juiciest part of the plant (usually the new growth tip, which is where they all are on our bramble) and then protect them from predators like ladybirds and stroke them with their antennae to milk them.

It’s the equivalent of an ant dairy farm.

There is so much going on if we just know where to look and a lot of it is really realllllly tiny.

Anyway the moral of this story is, if you ignore something for long enough sometimes it turns into something extremely cool.

(Disclaimer: this does not apply to medical stuff go and get checked out)

Seriously though: we think “writing a book” is all about sitting our butts down and squeezing out words one by one and putting them on paper.

And it is. But that’s only part of it.

When we step away and ignore our books for a few days or even a week or so, our brains can do amazing things in the background. It can solve problems. Come up with a cool opening line. Figure out where that story will best fit into your book.

All without you seemingly putting in any effort at all.

So next time you get stuck, turn it all off and go and look closely at your garden (or go for a walk in nature) and you’ll find magic happens.

If you want to make the writing process less haphazard and you’re on a mission, though, get some help. Hello! This is what I do.

Right now I have a spot for ONE Book Breakthrough: Unlocked session for people who are struggling to get started.

And I’m looking to work with ONE Book Breakthrough Lab client for my 3-month book coaching programme.

If you’d like one of these spots, reply to this email or click the links above to find out all about it and book online.

TTFN,

Vicky 🫡

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