Lockdown, 2020.
I was a copywriter who also helped people write nonfiction books, but the world had just
shattered + shut down
and who the hell was going to indulge writing a book when the ship was sinking?
[sounds horribly familiar right now, doesnât it?]
I lost a big copy client, as everyone battened down the hatches. Then another.
It was decision time: do I crash and burn? Or go all-in on what I really want to do?
Do I continue to seek copywriting clients because everyone was gonna want to sell as much stuff as possible and I could help them do thatâŠ
Or do I choose the thing that brings me joy⊠but that nobody really needs urgently?
I went all-in.
And had my best year yet.
This year is shaping up to be pretty good too, and I have a theory about why that is. WE NEED TO CREATE GOOD THINGS, NOW MORE THAN EVER.
But we have to decide to go all-in on it if we want to do it.
Look: this is a decision you have to make, too, about your book.
Do you let the book idea inside you crash and burn â or do you go all in?
I can tell you from experience that letting your book crash and burn is not the end of it; it eats at you. When we donât tell the stories we so badly want to tell, they corrode our spirits from the inside out.
But going all in can feel super scary (TRUST ME I KNOW).
So, hereâs what going all in on your book might look like:
đ„ Acknowledging that you DO know enough to write a book and you CAN make a difference with it
đ„ Making a promise to yourself that youâll write and publish this book â and KEEPING THAT PROMISE
đ„ Trusting yourself enough to know that everything you need to write your book is already inside you
đ„ Creating time and space over the next few weeks to dedicate to writing (donât worry it doesnât mean disappearing for months to a cabin in the woods although you absolutely can do that if you like!)
đ„ Deciding to be a person who writes books â and then behaving that way (whatever that looks like for you)
And the payoff?
Your book, written and published and in your hands, of course.
But even more than that â the knowledge that you set out to do A Hard Thing, and did it, and did it well, despite the voices in your head shrieking at you that this is too big, too scary, not worthwhile, frivolous, and all the other BS weâve internalised about doing things just for us that really matter to us.
And best of all â reaching and connecting with new people, who see you and hear you and decide they want to hang out in your space.
Your book will change you, in the best possible way.
Going all in on something important is one of the most exciting things you can do â even just making the decision is a tripppppp.
Are you all in?
Or are you gonna let your book idea crash and burn?
If youâre all in, letâs get you off to the best possible start.
âMicroBook Magic Season 7Â starts on April 28 and Iâd love to have you join us.
You can read all about it here and sign up.
And now for something completely good. The Friday Goodie Bag, of course!
Hereâs what Iâve wrapped up for youâŠ
Munya Chawawaâs piece of resistance
Satire is CRUCIAL in times like this, my friend, and comedian and activist Munya Chawawa knows that well. I love everything he makes, but this new single from Trump and Vance is probably my favourite.
This is why we need art. YOUR art. Because art is subversive and an act of resistance. They cannot take our imaginations!
âCheck it out here, and laugh it up!
These facts that will fuck with your head
I found out today that the Wild West era â cowboys and shooting people in the face and gold panning â was going on at the same time as Victorian England â uptight ladies taking tea and men putting big old sticks up their butts.
Yes, yes, I know you probably know this already but it blew my tiny mind.
See also: mammoths were roaming around while they were building the pyramids. Not on site, like, but still. Abe Lincolnâs era was also the era of Samurai warriors. MLK was born in the same year as Anne Frank. Napoleon was riding waves when Jane Austen was publishing her books.
Youâre welcome.
(Keep an eye out for things that shift your perspective, then maybe put them together. What would happen if MLK met Anne Frank? If Napoleon featured in one of Jane Austenâs books because they were best buds?)
Grandma Gatewoodâs Appalachian Trail
I love The Memory Palace podcast and this story caught my ears. Emma Gatewood, the first woman to walk the Appalachian Trail solo. She and her 11 children endured decades of beatings from her worthless husband in an age when you didnât escape from that kind of stuff.
Except she did. She won a divorce, and went straight out for a long walk. Listen to her story, which she made all about her trailblazing and not at all about the man who tried to steal her life. I particularly liked the part about how men along the trail would offer her a place to sleep on their porch in exchange for cooking and cleaning for them, and how she said F NO, Iâve just left all that nonsense behind, and did it on her own.
Enjoy!
Why ALL storytelling matters
I saw this âstorytelling in governmentâ piece on LinkedIn by Crystaline Randazzo (what a great name!!!) and had to share it here. Itâs easy to dismiss government work as boring or removed from us as everyday citizens. That distance makes it easy to stand by and not be bothered as fascists dismantle the structures of democracy.
Stories, though â stories bring that work to life and make it relevant in a way nothing else can. This story is words on (digital) paper, but your story of what you do can be in any form. Just make sure you tell it.
âRead this to see how it can be done.
This house listing that made me cackle
Most estate agentâs property descriptions are boring AF and 50% lies.
(DONâT @ ME YOU KNOW IâM RIGHT. And if youâre in the estate agency industry, itâs so easy to stand out and be amazing if you just have the cojones to do so.)
They all sound the same. Honestly, itâd be so easy to dominate the estate agent market AND do it ethically, but whoâs got the ovaries for it?
(If youâre an estate agent and that sounds like a challenge â it is. Go forth. Do something funny and brilliant.)
Anyway, Peter Whent shared this and it made me cackle. You should also check out A Brothel in Pimlico, a little book full of hilariously honest property descriptions written by an estate agent from the old days who gave zero fucks about what was âproperâ and was one of the most successful in his realm.
This woman is great. I donât need a property but Iâm hooked on her listings.
What Iâm reading
Iâm back on my Japanese fiction again. Thanks to a recommendation from my friend Sarah Silva, Iâm currently reading The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai which is delightful, but not quite as delightful as the previous books Iâve read (The Bookshop Woman and The Chibineko Kitchen).
What Iâm writing
Iâm still writing my Zine! Iâve nearly finished it. If youâre a current or past client, youâll get a little surprise in the post soon. Itâs not what you might think. And if youâre a subscriber, youâll get a downloadable version that may inspire you to create something fun too!
Word of the week: parsimonious
This weekâs randomly selected word from Rogetâs Thesaurus is parsimonious!
Meaning overly careful with money. Pennywise, miserly, mean, mingy, stingy, tightfisted, cheeseparing, ungenerous, giftless, chary, shabby, small-minded.
Donât be parsimonious, friend! Do use it in a sentence today, though.
Quote of the week
âYou want to take a stand â choose to retain your heart and humanity in a world that has abandoned it. Letâs live to die another day.â âMargo Aaronâ
Thanks for reading and remember: choose to retain your humanity. But always punch a Nazi.
How to work with The MicroBook Magician
âMicroBook Magic: Write your MicroBook in just 8 weeks â book for April 2025
âCreative Playground: Write every day + get advice, support, and bonus access to my workshops! (1 week trial for ÂŁ1)
âBook Coach In Your Pocket: Letâs see how much you can get done in just 30 days
âVIP Book Breakthrough Day: Make a quantum leap in book progress in just one day (or two half-days)
âNonfiction Book Ghostwriting: Idea to book in just 20 weeks
âBuy My Book: How the hell do you write a book?