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Increase your surface area
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Reading time: 1.39 389 words Hey Reader, Increase your surface area. That’s what I saw someone say the other day on Threads. It stopped me cold for a moment because the only idea that squatted in my skull was standing by the fridge and eating thinking cheese until I expand by 17 shirt sizes. And then I got stuck on why. Until I read on. “The best thing you can do for yourself is to actively increase your surface area for luck to hit you. Go outside, travel more, go to new cafes, take a new route home go on more side quests. You can literally just do things, and the more you do, the more serendipity and synchronicity will find you.” Luck is real. I don’t subscribe to the idea that there’s no such thing as luck. (I was lucky to be born into a family that loves and supports me and has never been poor, in a rich country, for example.) AND we can expand our lives so it’s more likely that luck will strike. Then it’s up to us to recognise it and use it. You know what the other benefit of increasing your surface area is? You will never, ever run out of things to write about. My notebooks, journals, and Trello boards are stuffed to bursting with things I’ve seen and noticed, quotes, ideas (mine and other people’s), and stories. Whenever I feel like I have nothing to say, I dive in at random. This message came from me suddenly remembering that Threads link I saved. If you want to write a book or anything else, feeding your brain is at least as important as emptying it. Go on a side-quest today. Increase your surface area. Apply those experiences to the book you’re trying to write. See what happens; what new insights you’ll get and what new angles you’ll have to share. Then just start. Except, I know, it’s not always that easy. So if you’ve been starting your book for weeks, months, or years, it’s time to say ENOUGH and get help. My Book Breakthrough: Unlocked session is designed to do exactly that. I delivered five of them last month and each of my clients is motoring along happily now after struggling to articulate their ideas. I have three spots in May and one of them could be yours. TTFN, Vicky 🫡 p.s. Know someone who might enjoy this email? Please forward it to them and get them to sign up here.
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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 weekday + a creative goodie bag on Friday 🖖🏼
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Reading time: 2.29 588 words Read this email in your browser Hey Reader, The gremlins in my head are absolutely diabolical. Dome-estic terrorists. (Geddit? My brain is my dome, they are causing terror in it?) Every time I think about writing an article, or just before I go onstage to do stand-up comedy, or whenever I talk about my books, up they ooze to whisper to me about how nobody is interested, how I don’t have anything useful or interesting to say, and how everybody hates my dirty...
Reading time: 7.05 1,683 words Read this email in your browser Hey Reader, “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with ex-convicts cutting keys,” said my elderly neighbour after I told him why I love Timpsons. Timpsons, if didn’t know, is a cobblers, dry-cleaners, key-cutting business based in the UK. It specialises in finding employment for ex-offenders and other marginalised groups. “Why?” I asked him. “Well, because a criminal will have my house key and all my personal details,” he said. We had a...