New book sneak peak 🤫
This week we chat about ideas big and small. I introduce my new book with a sneak-peak of one of the chapters and I tell you about some rather cool folks on the internet.
In the mail 📧
Small ideas: Things to ponder.
Stories: Introducing my new book (woo woo).
People: Cool people professionally.
Interesting things: creativity at it’s best.
SMALL IDEAS
It’s not time it’s focus - you’ll be surprised how much you can get done when you seriously focus.
Productivity first isn’t good - not every ounce of time is an opportunity to be productive, let’s relax a little.
Career happiness - starts with working out how you like to spend your days.
Big wins happen over a long time - you build your career one day at a time.
INTRODUCING MY NEW BOOK
Maybe there is something wrong with me but I’ve decided to write a second book. It came off the back of my most successful article this year, Your 9–5 Is Your Biggest Competitive Advantage. Never Give It Up. I realised a lot of people want to write alongside their 9-5, they just don’t know how to. After 2.5 years and 581 articles, I’ve learned a few things.
The following is an extract of my new book: 100,00 Words: The Quiet Secrets to Building a Writing Practice Alongside Your 9–5
Born in New York J.D. Salinger was a talented writer. He was the kind of guy that would do this thing forever given a chance. He’d not been good at much so far in his life but he was determined to make writing his ‘thing’. He liked it you see. He liked it enough to start anyway. It turns out starting would be the best decision he’d ever make. I think most people get the idea that you have to be head over heels in love with something to give it your time. Like you wouldn’t even go for a drink with writing if you weren’t tripping over yourself, legs shaking, sweating through your t-shirt kind of in love. That’s baloney (that’s what Jerry would say). You need enough to start. For Jerry, what started as a hobby morphed into a passion, into an obsession with a roaring furness. And like most success stories, the rest is history. In 1951 he hit the big time. The biggest of times. He wrote a book that today, still sells 250,000 copies every year. Despite all odds, despite the changes in the last 70 years, it’s a book that remains relevant and influential today. That’s all you can ever dream of doing as a writer.
But that’s not to say Jerry knew he was going to be one of the most famous writers in human history. Jerry, if anything, was starting to get rather tired of the realities of being a writer. He was learning the hard way that writing isn’t for the faint hearted. And if he didn’t learn it by himself, he had a teacher that made sure he knew it. The realities were plain and simple: you could write for the rest of your life and never make enough money to sustain yourself. His teacher made it clearer than the sky on a summer’s day. That’s the catch. The catch is that you must accept that and carry on anyway. That’s because in all likelihood that’s what will happen. It couldn’t be more true today. Everyone with an internet connection and a half baked idea wants to write a book. What makes you so different?
Love it as he may, Jerry had a decision to make: Did he love it so much that he would write for the rest of his life knowing that he might never make it? That is the same question you must answer. I hope to prove to you that you should write regardless of financial gain but it’s only you that can make the decision. What you must do though is decide fully. It’s no good half deciding. Saying yes but writing as if you really mean no. If you decide to commit to this writing thing you must take both feet, place them squarely together, hold your breath, close your eyes and jump. Dipping your toe won’t work with writing. To commit to writing you must give your soul to it. So if the answer isn’t a whole-hearted, surrounding, vein pulsing out of your head yes then the answer is no. With that answer you can close this book and move on with your life. But if you’ve decided to stay, if you’re in for the ride, let’s dive in.
Jerry published his first article in Story Magazine in 1940. It wasn’t until eleven years later that he published Catcher in the Rye. A book that would influence the lives of hundreds of thousands of young men across the globe. Jerry continued to write for the rest of his life. He, wholeheartedly, dedicated his life to writing.
Writing and money
Writing solely for money is ridiculous on two accounts. First, if you are bothered about money, I mean if it’s the thing that feeds your soul, then don’t choose writing. Why? Well the world would agree, writing is perhaps the worst way to make money. Go and chat to all the part-time writers trying to make ends meet whilst carving out enough time for their craft. Go ahead, ask them how much they make. You’ll quickly find that writing is the most expensive way to make money. Second and most importantly, if you are focused on the money aspect (which I’m not sure even is an aspect of writing) then you are missing the point entirely. There are much more noble things to derive from writing that bleeding it dry for money. If you are squeezing all the money out of writing, you’re being cheap.
PEOPLE
@Itskierandrew - big ideas made simple.
@Tim_Denning - online writing guru and all round top bloke.
@MattGiovansci - niche blogging genius.
INTERESTING THINGS
Super Surgeons will blow your mind and make you realise how lucky you are.
Claudia Winkleman’s Quite will make you laugh out loud in public (it happened to me twice this week).
Elizabeth Filips is making some killer content on YouTube.
Share this thing will ya?
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