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 🖖🏼
The world is going to shit, do something beautiful
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Reading time: 1.58 Hey Reader, During the pandemic, I had so many book coaching clients. (this isn’t a flex, promise) I took a massive scary leap and turned away from something people needed — sales copywriting — towards something nobody “needs” — writing a book. I kinda expected to last a month, then have to get a job picking fruit or stacking shelves or go back to being a cleaner again. But something weird and wonderful happened: people wanted to write. They wanted to do something beautiful. Looking back, it makes perfect sense, because the world was terrifying and fucked up and we lost connection with each other, and we stared at the news and watched it all get worse. (ahahahaha does this sound familiar) And some people turned away and said ENOUGH I am going to create something beautiful while the world is going to shit. Because although I said nobody NEEDS to write a book, despite the bazillion benefits of doing so, the world does needart. Music. Poetry. Stories. Dances. Kindness. IDEAS. The world needs this stuff EVEN MORE RIGHT NOW. Know why? Because our voices are our power. Because art is revolution and art is activism. Because the one thing we can all do is speak and listen, ask questions and connect. The people I work with don’t need to write a book; they WANT to. And now, the world appears to be on fire again (still?) (is it the death throes of this flavour of capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy? FINGERS CROSSED) Do you want to create something beautiful, something that spreads good ideas and starts important conversations? Or perhaps something that is fun and funny and whimsical just for the sake of it because joy is also resistance? Cos, friend, the world ISN’T as bad as the algorithms would have us believe (ask yourself what’s in it for them for us to believe that) (stop watching it) There is plenty of beauty and kindness and change for good. There are so many good people out there who genuinely want the world to be safe for everyone. But also some things are worse than the algorithms would have us believe and we need to be talking about those, too. We need to write about the things those in power would rather we didn’t write about. We need to write and speak about the things that are hidden. And we need to write and speak about the things that bring us joy. I am creating more than I ever have before, for me. BECAUSE I WANT TO. So, yeah. You don’t need to write a book. Nobody does. But do you want to? Really really really want to? You’re my person. Come join me for MicroBook Magic Season 7 and we’ll get your book out into the world.
TTFN, Vicky
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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 🖖🏼
Reading time: 2.44 Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, I didn’t know, until after we’d finished MicroBook Magic Season 2, that Sharon wasn’t just struggling with her own doubts. When she was in college, double majoring in English and Pysch, an English professor told her she “can’t write, and never will.” As an aside: it boggles me why some people go into teaching. Who would say that to a young person? And WHY? But this isn’t about that low-quality professor. It’s about Sharon....
Reading time: 4.25 Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, There’s a certain quality of light you get in the early morning and late evening, in the UK at least. Not golden hour, although that’s stunning; it’s a little later than that in the evening — immediately after dusk — and just around sunrise in the morning, if the sky is clear. There’s a strange clarity to everything. Lights look brighter, especially car headlights. The air has a sparkly haze. And flowers are luminous. Sometimes...
Reading time: 4.08 Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, “I am profoundly slothful,” said Fran Lebowitz, successful author of two books of essays — Metropolitan Life and Social Studies. This, after she’d spent a decade — yes, TEN YEARS — not writing anything. Puts my dodgy, creatively dry days, into some kind of perspective. I don’t know why Lebowitz struggled to write more than one chapter in a decade, any more than I know why you might have a bad writing day. Sometimes, I don’t even...