Hey friends – here’s the latest episode of my Couch to 80k Writing Boot Camp. I hope you had a happy and relaxing festive period, or if not that you at least survived it. I’m looking forward to finishing up the boot camp – then it’ll be completed, done, just existing as a resource that writers can download or stream and work through whenever they’re ready. If you’re currently working through it, fingers crossed you’re enjoying it, and it’s challenging you just enough to push you to write things you might not have tried before.

Because it’s the New Year and I’ve had the chastening discovery that I’m stony broke, I’ve popped up a little button in the sidebar that lets you drop me a few quid if you enjoy what I do here and would like to see and hear more of it. Anything I get goes towards hosting costs, and on the slim chance we go over that, it’ll all go towards making more and better episodes of Death Of 1000 Cuts, doing writing projects online like my first lines for novels that don’t (yet) exist, and keeping the lights on at Clare Towers. It’s been a bit tricky the last couple of years, writing a novel where I don’t yet know if it’ll get picked up, becoming a parent, writing a new stage show, recording Death Of 1000 Cuts and contending with periods of bum mental health, but I’m feeling more optimistic now so I thought I might as well pass round the hat, since my previous experiences doing so have been incredibly positive. It by no means represents an expectation on my part – it’s just there if you like what I do and think it’s worth supporting. I only set it up less than 24 hours ago and already I’ve been really taken aback (in a good way) by people’s generosity and encouragement. It’s so rad that you’re enjoying what I’m putting out. Here’s a link if you fancy clicking through and dropping something into my open guitar case. Thanks.

When I get to the end of the boot camp, I’ll do a short post (probably accompanied by a quick podcast episode) talking about the different ways – financial and non-monetary – you can support me and artists like me. Worth thinking about, not just so that we can all work together to create a vibrant arts culture with more of what we like, but also because a lot of those ways will become relevant to you if you put a book out in future. Thinking about the kind of help you might need, then practising by giving that help to others, is both pragmatic and it makes you feel good.

Right. Enough from me. Back to work.