Wherever you are on your book writing adventure, you’ll find what you need here…
What to do if you’re just starting out on your Author Adventure: planning, preparation, and dealing with your Inner Dickhead
The first time I picked up The Heretics by Will Storr I got about 25 pages into it — not even past the introduction — before I had to put it down because I got so angry.
It’s about people who think the Earth is flat, who believe homeopathy can cure cancer, who think they’ve been abducted by aliens.
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?
It was decision time: do I crash and burn? Or go all-in on what I really want to do?
This here is Toby Tortoise, who I take care of sometimes.
He lives just along the lane from me and he has strawberry on his face (living his best life!).
All he needed was a little sunshine and warmth to do the thing he does best: eat and snooze.
What do you need to do the thing you do best?
Find a daffodil and look at it. Look at it until you remember how beautiful the world can be.
Stand in the sunshine and let the sun soak into your face, until you remember that there are more people who want the world to be kind and gentle than those who want to spread fear.
Then, pull your socks up, buckaroo, and get writing.
You’re a writer. You are, or you wouldn’t be here reading this.
So I have a question for you today: how do you feel about big tech AI companies stealing your work?
If you’re in the UK, please read on — then take action.
My face is one giant grin right now because I’m reading the reviews coming in from yesterday’s Find Your Funnybone microworkshop.
Julia’s starts with:
“The “find your funny bone” workshop had all the elements of a perfect workshop…”
Do you know what your most powerful weapon is in fighting the current rise of fascist ideas and literally saving the world?
It’s your brain. Your voice. Your ideas.
The words you use and how you put them together to subvert and combat misinformation, cruelty, and outright lies.
3 pieces of writing advice you may want to put in the bin — and what to try instead…
Beauty lies in the gaps. In the imperfections.
Because the imperfections are what makes life interesting.
The way the trapeze spins slightly faster than you were anticipating, so your movement quality changes almost imperceptibly and surprisingly, and your face makes a different shape to the one you were planning — but it works.
One of my MicroBook Magicians asked me this week — what if I don’t feel like planning today? What if I just want to dive right in? I want to write write write but I know I need to research some stuff!
And to that I say: HURRAH!
Fill yer boots, because there is no wrong way to write a book.
Progress is never linear.
It never takes us in a straight line from bad to good to excellent.
It’s a wiggle.
I’d like to think the wiggle trends upwards but we have to give it time to do that. Two data points aren’t enough, because that gives us the illusion of a straight line but it’s not, really.
Some things are just good for your brain.
No matter what’s going on inside it, what illnesses or challenges or mental health issues we may have — some activities are magic.
Like…Walking among trees. Moving your body. Human contact. Journalling.
