Hello,
from under the biggest window I could find. Thank goodness the sun is back, eh? Did you know there's a Norwegian island called Sommaroy that gets 69 "days" of uninterrupted sunshine - that is to say, uninterrupted by night - and therefore wants to abolish time? I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand I think, given the lack of Great Sky Clock, surely you'd want to cleave even more to a social agreement of exactly what is happening when and for how long. On the other... when we lose those moorings, do we find the clock within? In January, I went to the isolated colony of Cove Park, just off Loch Long, to write and get lost in the writing. I frequently found that time was a hindrance: have I done enough for the time I've spent? Have I spent too long, maybe I should stop? I also found that time was hard to escape. I know you're looking at a clock now, because you're looking at a screen. Almost every piece of visual technology has a clock slapped on it. And almost none of them lets you turn it off.
I unplugged the microwave, put my phone on the bed, and put a bit of blu-tack over the screen. I was happier than the image implies. Sommaroy, my thoughts are with you.
Another busy week, mostly taken by the contract work and business admin. I now have a website up. You can't see it - yet. You will, though, lovely Early Adopters.
On Wednesday, I met up for two pints' worth of time with a mentor. We talked life, purpose, and tax deductibles. And the mentor said something like, "I really like reading your newsletters. What exactly are they for? If they're to get new business around brand propositions and storytelling, you could focus the content more around that-"
"Oh, they're not!" I said, with the evasive flex of a startled cat. And then I tried to explain what they were for. Which was difficult.
On What's Happening Here
When I judge this newsletter against the others I read, it IS a bit misshapen. A lot of the big, successful ones are "Here's a load of stuff I found this week, maybe you'd like that." (See: Webcurios. And say goodbye to an hour.) Very valuable, but I'm not doing that: I put two things in a week, and they're not very current at all. Most are far less personal: they are more news than letter (see: Benedict Evans), which again is more useful to the reader. Even if they are personal, they usually still have clear focus (Craig Mod's is all about him, but it's also about walking through Japan.)
So I run the risk of coming off as Valueless, Newsless, Unfocused. But I'd like you to like this, and to feel like we have some kind of value contract together that I promise to uphold. Else why would you read it, and why would you recommend it?
(Why didn't I do this better before? Probably because I didn't know before. I don't fully know now, but I know enough to guess. And really, guesses are all way have.)
So enough about what this isn't. Let's talk about what this is.
1: Vulnerability
People do not talk enough about their work. Their fears and hopes and uncertainties. This year, I've deliberately put myself into a situation that is both more flexible (more jobs, more people, more places) and, God willing, more emotionally honest too. I have to make harder choices about what I'm doing and why. I have to face questions of self-representation rather than letting a company represent me. I have to ask for money, rather than show up and have it given to me. I think many more of us will go in this direction. And I'd like to use The Eureka Project as a way of sending dispatches back from that frontline. Because I want us all to learn. I hope one day, mine is the kind of thing that the newsletters with links link to.
(Oh yeah. I want to make sure I learn, too. Who do you think was the first subscriber?)
2: Cadence
When working for yourself, there's not much innate shape; you are partly shaped by the clients you have. But it's all the more incumbent on you to create your own structures. If you don't do you own shaping, other forces will shape you (even the companies that have shaped all of us: did they not just inherit their own shapes from the companies that come before them?)
And so I have the little things that I do. There will be more. This is the first one. A letter every Friday. It's a start. Maybe it's a little bit of shape in your week, too.
3: Connection
When did you last get a letter? When did you send one? They're nice, and increasingly rare in a broadcast world. Don't get me wrong, this is still broadishcast (55 people - hi!) but it is also self-selecting. It's unapologetically personal so that the kind of people who don't want that can feel free to unsubscribe, and the people that do want it can get something that doesn't happen all that often any more.
4: Words
I work in words, both for marketing and for James Mitchell, Creative Writer Guy. Words are my chops of the tree, nails in the board. And while it's true that word selection is important, so is word production. Words beget words. Ask anyone who's tried Morning Pages. I understand reporters on the beat become very good at this, treating words as something both special and normal, to be pored over when possible and poured out when needed. The Eureka Project is one of the ways I practice this.
5: A New Business Tool, In A Way
The ultimate tool is something that doesn't just attract people to you; it attracts the right people to you, who want to buy the thing you actually want to sell. If someone wants to work with me not despite but because of the honesty I try to put into these, that's wonderful. I won't let them down.
6: Your Reason Here
Because nothing is set in stone. Let me know, help me grow.
Inputs
Morning Pages - the biggest and simplest trick advocated by Dorothea Brande and Julia Cameron, mentioned last week. Whether you work in words or not, I know you think in them. For that reason alone, this is worth a try.
Robin Sloan, Year Of The Meteor - okay, so I'm not totally Sui Generis in my newsletter approach. If I could do my very own Being John Malkovich, it would be with Robin Sloan. But then I wouldn't have his thoughts, so what would be the point?
That's Eureka 7: a little pause. A Saturn Return, of sorts. And a good time to say thank you. For every edition I've sent out, I've got a pitter-patter of pings on the radar. Thank you for noticing and responding, however you have. Every nod matters.
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