Having Something to Say

So, let me clear: if you are a fan of Warren Ellis work in any way, and you have not subscribed to his email newsletter, you should fucking remedy that right fucking now.

If you are a fan of smart creators doing smart things with networking tools, you should also fucking remedy that right now.

If you are…look, fuck it. The man is smart. He talks about things in a smart way. Go forth. It is a surprising thing when I actually look forward to making a cup of coffee and sitting down to read an email, but I do this every week and it’s always fucking rewarding.

Case in point.

This is the part of the job that doesn’t get talked about a lot, not least because it’s hard to talk about, but also because it doesn’t involve Productivity and Goals and The Magic Of Writering and The Grand Statement and all that good stuff in interviews. Sure, we all talk about the important Staring At The Wall And Farting Around time, but it’s also about sifting through the shitpile at the back of your head and deciding if you actually have anything to say.  Any idiot can recycle the monomyth and plug in a setting and a handful of blank characters, but that’s not the same as having something to say: about the world, life, a thing, even yourself. I have a whole folder of loose ideas that dried up and got thrown in the folder because they and I turned out to have nothing to say about anything – they were just collections of cogs and levers.  And by that, I mean probably eight to ten dead ideas, written up and filed, for every one that gets published.

It’s a moronic way to work. Some of my books only speak to me, I’m sure.  It’s just the only way to work that I know.

From Orbital Operations newsletter, May 1st, Warren Ellis