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...
4 days ago • 4 min read
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...
5 days ago • 4 min read
Reading time: 1.12 Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, Always “going to write” your book? Not actually written it? (Yep I woke up and chose violence today and I AM NOT SORRY) The cognitive dissonance that comes from repeatedly vowing to do something but not doing it is painful. It makes a liar of us. For a lot of people (and myself on occasion) this is what a week looks like: 😀 Monday: Will work on my book today, but first I need to do more research between my other work. I’ll start...
6 days ago • 1 min read
Reading time: 1.58 Read this email in your browser. 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...
7 days ago • 2 min read
Reading time: 2.24 Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, Caution: you may experience these side effects when you write your book: 🌤️ An increased sense of self 🗝️ Realising the true value you have to offer 👀 A new way of looking at the world ✨ Seeing — really seeing — your true skills, knowledge, and talent (May also cause giddiness, tears, laughter, rage, delight, and a propensity to panic-eat cheese.) And that’s just the side effects. Because you also get A BOOK. A real live book you...
8 days ago • 3 min read
Read this email in your browser. Reading time: 4.30 Hey Reader, Here’s a bunch of things you don’t need to write a book: 🧑🏽🎨 A degree in English Literature A degree in English Language A degree 20 years’ experience in your chosen topic Fancy writing software 10 different workflow and productivity apps Expensive notebooks A big old stick up your butt A firm grasp on spelling and grammar A neurotypical brain 4 hours per day A bunch of privilege A cabin in the woods Independent wealth Here’s...
11 days ago • 5 min read
Reading time: 3.58 Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, It’s my birthday today and here are 46 things I’ve learned. One for each year I’ve been alive. ✅ Pebbles are brilliant but if you fill your pockets with them they break your pockets. Even if your life partner loves you to distraction, they will still get annoyed if you run out of pockets and start filling their pockets with pebbles. Dinosaurs are for everyone, not just for children. Adults should never stop playing because when...
12 days ago • 4 min read
Reading time: 2.22 Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, “Write a book? A BOOK? Like, 200 pages and 50,000 words? A compelling story that hooks you in and drags you along that is worthy of the bestseller lists? Are you kidding me?” Well, if you put it like that… Ya, a book feels terrifying. So let’s not do that. Not just yet. Instead, consider this: Story isn’t the big banana. A book isn’t the enormous enchilada. The story and the book are simply the vehicle for the idea. So riddle me...
13 days ago • 3 min read
Reading time: 2.59 Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, The longer you leave it, the harder it gets. And the more pointless it seems… And the more you should have started last week, last month, last year — so you may as well not start at all. It’s too late now, after all. What is even the point of it allllllll? … But this, my friend, is absolute piddywiddle. Sure, the best time to have started writing your book is a year ago or a month ago or a week ago, but you didn’t. shrug Oh well....
14 days ago • 3 min read