Issue No. 4 — 6 November 2022
By Jill Metcalfe
A few months ago I read an article by Dickie Bush where he said that, if your newsletter is not either short & curated or long & original, you shouldn’t bother writing one.
Mine is neither. It’s a bit curated, a bit personal reflection, and – original? Very few people on the internet can claim that.
So, because my first instinct is to do as I’m told, I didn’t write any more newsletters.
And then, because my second instinct is to rebel, I decided to write a newsletter anyway.
My justification is:
I got Covid a few weeks ago and ended up reading A LOT of fiction. It was just what my brain needed.
I asked Twitter for recommendations in the summer and that thread has been a gold mine of new fantasy and sci-fi discoveries.
https://twitter.com/jillmetcalfe/status/1564339483415388163
I ripped through The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir and Recursion by Blake Crouch. All new authors to me.
Been listening to Josh Spector’s new podcast, I Want To Know.
The episodes are short and to the point: guests ask Josh 3 questions and he answers them.
The guests might not all be well-known in the creator community (although some of them are) but I’ve learned a ton from all of them.
Episode 2 was a banger.
I Want To Know: I Want To Know How To Get The Right Clients on Apple Podcasts
@JSpector on Twitter.
Jakob Greenfeld writes about issues we’re all familiar with (entrepreneurship, personal branding, productivity, audience building etc.) but his perspective is quite unique.
His rabbit hole is well worth a tumble.
@JakobGreenfeld on Twitter.
Before I could write this newsletter I had to spend a couple of hours tweaking the Substack preview window that appears on Twitter.
I ended up making an inspo page. Steal it here:
Substack previews & description inspo
I’ve been keeping myself regular on Twitter with a scheduling helper that I’ll be releasing as a freebie very soon.
I’ve managed 8 days of consistent tweeting so far.
Stay tuned 🎶.
I’ve got a great template for creating e-books in Notion ready to go. Just need to film a quick tutorial video.
And clear my calendar for three days to make that happen.
So much has been happening in Notionland over the last few months that’s it’s hard to keep up.
For this newsletter, I decided to showcase a new feature that overcomes Notion’s page width limitations (narrow or full width, nothing in between) by using columns.
Any page section with more than one column can be expanded widthwise beyond the margins of the narrow page.
Like this.
<aside> <img src="https://api.iconify.design/bx:bxs-quote-alt-left.svg?color=%23888888" alt="https://api.iconify.design/bx:bxs-quote-alt-left.svg?color=%23888888" width="40px" /> Where there is a Dream, there is Resistance. Thus: where we encounter Resistance, somewhere nearby is a Dream. —Steven Pressfield
</aside>
<aside> <img src="https://api.iconify.design/bx:bxs-quote-alt-left.svg?color=%23888888" alt="https://api.iconify.design/bx:bxs-quote-alt-left.svg?color=%23888888" width="40px" /> Sometimes I wonder why I’m not more well-known, and sometimes I think I’m fortunate that no one has (yet) discovered that I’m a fraud. —David C. Baker
</aside>
