Newsletter Therapy
Advice to help you send bangers every week.
Writing is just talking on paper
Hey Reader! I’m logging my most recently completed book in Goodreads, and checking out my stats. I’ve read 70 books so far this year. Last year I read 96, in 2023 it was 106. So yeah, that’s pretty much how I spend my free time. No judgment, please! To be fair, I come by this particular obsession honestly; I'm not even the biggest reader in my family. It's a Williamson thing; we're all gluttons for the written word. Here's what family vacations looked like: My mother is doing the Sunday Times...
I didn’t really think this through…
This is a longish one, so I’ll cut to the chase! I’ll be hosting a live, in-person workshop on Tuesday, September 16 at Kiln, a co-working and office space here in Portland. I’m calling it Open, Read, Repeat: Crafting Irresistible Emails Fancy, right? 1120 SE Madison St., Portland from 11:30-12:30 It’s free and there’s no formal registration. Feel free to reach out for more details - I’d love to see you there! Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. Hey Reader! Once upon a time I...
Doing my best, how about you?
Hey Reader! I wholeheartedly subscribe to the ‘good enough’ theory of nearly everything. (Parenting is a glaring exception - how can I be satisfied with being a good enough parent when my children obviously deserve so much more? But I digress.) Good enough housecleaning or jobbing or budgeting or whatever is just that; good enough. It’s an antidote to the perfectionism that burns so bright in the breast of most entrepreneurs. Do it, get it done, stop stressing about the itty-bitty details. If...
I'm telling!
Hey Reader! So, I have this one annoying coworker. Ok, obviously I've had several annoying coworkers over the years. I could tell you stories! But I won’t, because what if through some insane twist of fate they read this and recognize themselves? Which, on one hand, would serve them right? But on the other would make me feel like a jerk. I mean, I could bring up the behavior that bugs me so much. What is it that keeps me silent when frankness might help? Several things jump to mind. They will...
I hear you knocking
Hey Reader! Late last night some kids knocked on my door. Like, after 10 pm? It was a pretty loud RAP RAP RAP which startled me, but is honestly how most people knock. The doorbell has never worked, so that’s on me. I opened the door, which in retrospect could have been a bad idea, I guess. But there was no one there. So I closed it. Then they threw a rock at it, which seemed unnecessarily mean. So I yelled “Who’s there?” which, admittedly, was probably the reaction they were hoping for....
green-eyed and monstrous
Hey Reader! Jealousy reared its ugly head at me the other day. I was reading an email from someone I’d lost touch with - a business acquaintance. She’s done so many interesting things, and seems to have done them all annoying well. From competing in an unusual sport to becoming an early craft influencer to getting a graduate degree in something that doesn’t sound all that fascinating but then using that degree to work somewhere really cool… And a bunch of other stuff besides. Yes, I’m being...
yeah, they're breaking up for sure
Hey Reader! I was busy selling mattresses the other day when I overheard a couple arguing. At least, I heard a woman speaking angrily to her partner. Unclear what his response was because I was at work, where I am unable to eavesdrop effectively. The gist of her complaint was that he and his kids were speaking Spanish to one another and she does not understand Spanish. She was feeling ignored and left out. This is not a new problem in their relationship. According to her, she asks them to...
Secrets of the sleep-inhibited
Hey Reader! I sleep with David Sedaris almost every night. He’s not in my bed with me, of course. We’ve never met. And then he’s gay, and in a 30+ year relationship. Nonetheless, he murmurs in my ears nightly and puts me to sleep, with tales of feeding snapping turtles in North Carolina and spiders in France. At the age of 60 I need very specific conditions in order to fall asleep and more or less stay asleep throughout the night. Listening to audiobooks has become one of those requirements....
Let it be easy
Hey Reader! I don’t know about you, but I’ve been feeling the P R E S S U R E lately. Pressure to save the planet, pressure to combat fascism, pressure to secure my financial future, pressure to have some fun, already. Seems like the culture is a pressure cooker - and is it going to expel a nice healing matzoh ball soup or just more toxic steam? I have my suspicions. Like many Americans 🇺🇸 I have a benefits job. Meaning that I have a day job that I do almost exclusively for the...
Apostrophes are in
Hey Reader! A very nice (seeming) young man knocked on my door this morning to do a quick “air quality survey”. He asked a few questions and I answered them and realized I’ve no idea whatsoever what the point of the survey was. 🤷🏻 But someone’s paying that kid to pester people and enter them into some sort of drawing, which, now that I’m thinking about it, seems kind of suspicious. Anyway, I’m a recluse who doesn’t particularly like having anyone knock on my door, but I’m too polite to put up...
Advice to help you send bangers every week.