I get weird in supermarkets.

The only time I actively look for one of those self-serve tills in Tesco, is when I have a yellow sticker thing in my trolley.

If I go to a checkout with an actual person on it, the stress of worrying about the human till person missing my yellow sticker, swiping the original barcode instead, is just too much.

If I go to a checkout with an actual person on it, I have to load one item from my trolley onto the conveyor, then glance up and stare – frozen like a statue – right at the till person for, say, a second. I have to do this over and over as the yellow sticker thing gets closer to them. As discretely as I can. Bread… turn, freeze and stare. Potatoes… turn, freeze and stare. Cheese… turn, freeze and stare.

And Izobel is chattering to me at the same time. Distracting me. So I shush her. I’m concentrating. And our dad/daughter shopping mood gets icy.

After all that I still miss seeing the till person swiping the yellow sticker thing. The yellow sticker thing gets swiped in the split second I’m reaching into my trolley for peanut butter rather than freezing and staring.

Do I want a receipt? Yes! Yes, of course I want a receipt! I have to check if you swiped the yellow sticker barcode or the original barcode by mistake.

Somehow, a pound in the supermarket today is different to a pound in the bar at the weekend. Yes, I paid six pounds for one pint last weekend. But in this supermarket, today, one pound seems like so much more. ‘Probably why I’d wrestle someone for the one pound I put in my trolley coin lock release thing, too.

Like I say.

Weird.

Starting something brand new at 57 years old is hard work. And to make things worse, as well as it being hard work, the thing that I’ve chosen to do for the first time at 57 years old is also bloody hard work.

Writing a book is the hardest kind of work I’ve done in years. Maybe ever. And I’m also having to work really hard at doing this hard kind of work. Investing lots of hours for, sometimes, very little.

One sentence.

Or one word.

Right now, I’m comparing what I think is good writing by others, to my writing. That’s probably a bad idea. Because I am preconditioned to think (know?) that Dave Trott and John Green are good writers both because I really like their work, and because they are commercially successful.

Me? I’ve written and sold nothing. So there’s no external information for me to use. No external information to help me work out if what I write is any good. Even though I quite like writing what I write, it’s hard to work out if I’d like to read my own stuff.

(I don’t like my actual speaking voice either. So when I imagine my written words read out loud in my own voice, they sound worse. To me).

I do, occasionally, get nice email about what I have written on my 50odd blog. That’s valuable. Sometimes, people tell me why they like what I write. It’s normally to do with my perspective. What I notice and how I see things. That’s where, ‘What the world looks like. To me. From here.’ comes from. It comes from 50odd readers.

What I do know is that, when it comes to my writing, at this precise moment I am not disciplined enough, structured enough, brave enough or being bothered enough to be doing exactly what I should be doing. I may be in shock. In shock that the process is so slow, hard and opaque.

But maybe it’s a good sign that I know what I need to do to give me the best possible chance of success. Now, all I have to do, with this brand new and bloody hard work, is work harder.

The best things in my life, are little.

Little is simple.

Pure.

More concentrated and flavoursome.

I understand little better than I understand big.

I prefer life that way.

The little bread maker in our village, Wendy, makes a couple of dozen cheesy loaves each week.

I buy one.

The little honey farm near my house sells honey that’s actually honey.

I like a little flat white in handleless cup from a little independent coffeeshop.

Single malt whisky from a little independent distiller.

Mature cheese from a little cheese maker whose name I know.

Grants cake shop in Corbridge.

Smiles.

They’re all little.

Focused and real.

And… nicer.

When a business is little, the business cycle is little, so shelf life extending bullshit is absent.

And the supply chain is generally happier when whoever made the thing is little.

Because fewer people get treated like shit when one human looks another in the eye.

Generally, the bigger things get, the shitter things get.

When a business gets big, business phones are answered by recorded messages.

When is this OK?

Never.

Not because messages are too long, because the bigger business values their time more than your time.

Not because the message is designed to nudge you out of the way of their business and your money as efficiently as possible.

A recorded message is never, ever OK in business because it is the perfect example of how media becomes message.

“Paul, as MD you have to decide.”
“Decide what?”
“Customers call. Prospects call. They want help. They want to feel valued and heard.”
“So you want to know if I’m going to put our best people on the phones to make the caller feel valued and heard, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Put nobody on the phones. Absolutely fucking nobody. Record something, once, that filters out who we don’t want, and gets the money of those we do want – fast. If the call takes ages, fine. Use a phone number that costs them, not us. And make it horribly convoluted for existing customers to leave. OK?”
“Oh. OK. Thanks.”

I mostly avoid big.

And it’s good advice to avoid big pretending to be little, too.

There’s a lot of that on Instagram.

The brand positioned as the focussed seller of just one, considered, crafted, science-backed, dog-transforming dog toy.

The brand that is then, post purchase, revealed to be the hard-to-contact PlasticBastard & Co., a city-sized-factory five thousand miles away, firing out shoddily made whatnots to the gullible and the disappointed.

The best things in my life, are little.

Little is simple.

Pure.

More concentrated and flavoursome.

I understand little better than I understand big.

I prefer life that way.

I want to write the best book ever written on the subject I’m writing about.

Once I work out the subject I’m writing about.

But as I say in yesterday’s 50odd story called ‘tension’, working out the subject I’m writing about can wait a bit.

Another thing that can wait a bit is taking too close a look at the following piece of work that I did a couple of weeks ago.

I analysed ‘them’.

Them being Seth Godin, Rick Rubin, Brene Brown, Tim Ferris and James Clear.

The analysis below is useful, but – I think – only when you have a small body of work that you’ve created, thoroughly and well.

So you can compare your stuff, with their stuff.

Writing to this formula from day one, is probably a mistake.

Keep hold of this though.

Or pass it on.

Because it will be useful later.

This is Marketing by Seth Godin.

• Hook. Marketing is about meaning not manipulation.
• Dispels. Marketing is about pushing product on everyone.
• Offers. A more human, ethical, effective approach to influencing behaviour.
• Readers. Founders, marketers, creators, leaders trying to connect ideas with audiences.
• Why buy. Removes discomfort people feel about marketing, reframing it as purposeful communication.

The Creative Act by Rick Rubin.

• Hook. Creativity is a way of living.
• Dispels. Creativity is a talent reserved for artists.
• Offers. Access to creativity as a mindset.
• Readers. People who want to feel more creative, thoughtful, original and expressive.
• Why buy. Reframes creativity from skill to identity.

Daring Greatly by Brene Brown.

• Hook. Vulnerability creates courage and connection.
• Dispels. Vulnerability is a weakness.
• Offers. Permission to be open without shame.
• Readers. People who want deeper relationships, confidence and authenticity.
• Why buy. Turns an uncomfortable idea into a strength.

4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris.

• Hook. Escape the 9 to 5 through design.
• Dispels. Work must dominate life.
• Offers. Freedom through unconventional choices.
• Readers. People who feel trapped by traditional work structures.
• Why buy. Promises liberation from a widely felt constraint.

Atomic Habits by James Clear.

• Hook. Tiny habits create remarkable results.
• Dispels. Change requires huge motivation or dramatic action.
• Offers. Simple, structured ways to improve almost anything through small repeated behaviours.
• Readers. People wanting improvement without overwhelm.
• Why buy. Makes self improvement feel achievable and controllable.

You’re welcome.

Once I saw the difference between being ‘writing ready’ and ‘publisher ready’ – the paralysis lifted.

And off I went.

Here’s how writing a book, at the very beginning, felt to me.

There was tension between two quite different ways of writing.

First, there was the simpler way.

A way of writing that feels natural and, somehow, automatic.

Fluent.

Immediate.

Tourettes-like.

It’s relatively easy, writing like this.

So long as I am concentrated and disciplined, of course.

Because writing like this is an extension of who I am.

I’m confidently saying what I want to say, out loud, as interestingly and as coherently as I can.

Buggering about exploring humour, pace, influence, structure and what keeps me interested and moving forward.

This is simply being ‘writing ready’ – and I like it.

There’s a second way to start writing a book, though.

And that second way starts with a small stack of smart questions.

1. Who is the book for? Answering narrowly and precisely.
2. What’s the book about? One sentence.
3. What’s the hook? The simple, empowering truth the reader will see.
4. What widely believed assumption does this book dispel?
5. How will the reader change? 
6. Why will they buy this book?

There are more.

Anyhow, when I first decided to write, I looked at this second way first.

And that was a mistake.

Because this second way focusses me on being ‘publisher ready’.

And it forced me to write with clear objectives in mind.

And I don’t like that.

I was measuring far too much, far too soon.

It was rubbish.

And unenjoyable.

I get that being publisher ready is obvs the best way to get published.

But it’s not the best way to write.

Not at the beginning.

Not for me.

Writing right at the beginning with a publisher in mind feels… paralysing.

So I chose the first way first.

I chose being ‘writing ready’.

I just start writing, writing how I write, learning and getting better as I go, creating a body of work that I’ll later consider against the stack of questions that help me to become ‘publisher ready’.

Seeking out the thread that will be there, invisibly binding everything together.

I’m no expert at, and I have no experience of, writing books.

But I am working with and learning from published experts.

Eleanor Tweddle, and others, have helped me to bypass the tension – and start writing.

Because once I saw the difference between being ‘writing ready’ and ‘publisher ready’, the paralysis lifted.

And off I went.

I launched 50odd on my 50th birthday. On day-one I said out loud (to myself as nobody else was listening) that I’d write one 50odd story.

Every.

Single.

Day.

For ten.

Whole.

Years.

Anyhow I didn’t.

I wrote every day for a couple of years. Then sporadically. So there are about a thousand and a half stories on the 50odd website. At its peak, about 10,000 people a day read them.

A month ago, I shifted shape.

I moved my writing from side project to main focus. It’s scary because I’m earning little, slowing down and feeling selfish. Selfish because, each day, I’m doing something I like and making no money. But I’m happier.

I am still thinking about exactly what I want to say, why, and how best to say it. But what I do now know is that the work will become a book, probably called ‘pills’ in 2027.

Here’s why I’m telling you this…

Pills will essentially be the best of ’50odd – The Diary of a Man That Stopped Waiting’ – but mostly new stories that I never launched or am thinking about now, not old ones that you might have read. I just write what the world looks like, to me, from here. I’m thinking deeper than ever about what I actually feel, and want to say – out loud – for me.

I’ll chronicle the journey here, and post passages of unedited bits and bobs for you to read every now and then.

Some will be shite.

Some might be good.

You never know.

If you like what I am doing, please stay connected, tell me what you think from time to time, and tell more people about pills as it develops.

Please.

You’ll also see what it’s really like writing a book. The ups. The downs.

If you don’t like any of this, you can of course unsubscribe. Don’t do that yet though. Take a peep at the new stuff, first.

I think the book will be called pills.

I think each ‘pill’ will be between 1,500 and 2,000 words, so a sevenish minute read each.

I think I’ll launch a taster book of 10 pills in 2026. Subscribers like you will get it first and free.

I think the proper ‘pills – course one’ book will have 50 pills. So about 80,000 words.

And I think that the proper ‘pills – course one’ book will be around in 2027.

I think.

What I’ve learned so far is that writing properly, or what I think is properly, is slow. And unnerving. And quite hard. And that I need friends around to help me. That’s one of the reason I am writing this today – to you. I also think that trying to write properly will be the best and worst things I’ve ever done.

Best, because the books I write might be popular and valued.

Worst, because they might not.

Anyhow, here’s a little bit of a raw, unedited, unfinished story called ‘beach huts’.

…

BEACH HUTS

I’d never been to Whitby, in the North of England. Not until my sister moved there in 2020. The pandemic gave us all space to think. And the time to act on what we were thinking. So when my sister thought about moving house in the space created by the arrival of Covid 19, she had the time to do it, too.

Whitby is a busy, but not rib-elbowingly busy coastal town. Twelve thousand people live there, their ages averaging older than the UK at large. Whitby feels more populous than that though, because of the tourists. And Whitby feels older than it is, too. Locked in, I’d say, 1973. It wasn’t Whitby’s wet sand that slowed Morrissey’s feet to a trudge as he suggested they forgot to close it down, before then inviting Armageddon to come and do the job for them. But it could have been Whitby that Morrissey was singing about, just as convincingly as the more Morrissey-probable Morecambe or Southport. After all, Whitby’s idea of modernisation is en-suites in hotel rooms, new street signs that you can read, wifi in coffee shops and charging you fifty pence for a piss.

…

Chat soon.

M.

Here’s how to read a flinch.
A flinch creates a momentary pause within which you have to make a decision.
Go with your instincts and turn back.
Or go against your instincts and move forward further and faster than ever before.
Choose against.

I was listening to this author chat about his writing last night.
I can’t remember his name.
But I do remember what the said about how to write successfully.
Successfully, by the way, he defined simply.
‘Successfully’ he explained.
‘Means they read what you wrote’.
Cool.

Anyhow, in order to write successfully, this multi-published author’s best advice was – don’t flinch.
He said if you want to say something.
Or write something.
And the very thought of saying or writing the words down makes you flinch.
That’s a 100% sure sign you should do it.

The books in which he didn’t flinch – sold.
The books in which he did flinch – didn’t.

A flinch creates a momentary pause within which you have to make a decision.
Go with your instincts and turn back.
Or go against your instincts and move forward further and faster than ever before.
Choose against.

Recognising brilliant.
In a person or thing.
Is an evermore important skill.
Because if you’re crap at recognising brilliant.
You get something useless at best.
And damaging at worst.
You get the average of average.

You have to know who to listen to and who to ignore.
Who to invite and who to leave outside.
Who to read and who to not read.

If you’re crap at recognising brilliant you go for volume.
Thinking the more of ‘these things’ you digest, the more likely you’ll optimise.
That doesn’t work.
It just wastes time.

Far better is recognising brilliant in the person or the thing you’re looking for.
Picking them.
Or it.
Then buggering off and leaving them to it.

Recognising brilliant.
In a person or thing.
Is an evermore important skill.
Because if you’re crap at recognising brilliant.
You get something useless at best.
And damaging at worst.
You get the average of average.

A rare, rare skill that – I think – is getting ever-rarer.
Is being bothered.
Have a think about that for a moment.
(If you can be bothered).
Because tucked away behind this notion, are business and a life opportunities – for all of us.

I think salt cellars run out of salt in restaurants and cafes because nobody could be bothered to check them.

I think menus lie stained and crumpled on coffee shop tables because nobody could be bothered processing the fact that – to me – shitty menu means shitty kitchen means shitty food.

I think people answering phones in businesses say, ‘sorry, Paul’s not here now – can you call back?’ because they can’t be bothered taking a coherent message – and asking Paul to call me.

And I think people that are bigger or smaller thisser or thatter than they’d like, is mostly because they can’t be bothered doing what’s needed to get where they (say they) want.

We have this little dog hotel in one of our holiday cottages. I had to be bothered putting dog wallpaper in it, to make it as good as it could be. It hurt my knees.

Before every guest visits, I have to be bothered weighing exactly 50 grams of coffee beans into a little brown bag. Then I have to be bothered to write every guest’s name, and their dog’s name, on the bag. So they simply grind-and-use the exact amount needed for the (unfamiliar) cafetière we provide. It’s bit of a faff.

And instead of saying to our cottage visitors – at the end of their stay – just leave the key inside the cottage. We have to be bothered packing a bigger brown bag – stamped with ‘Bye for Now’ – with bottles of water, sweet snacks and savoury snacks, for their journey home. It costs a bit of money, and adds to the to-do list.

It’s really nice that guests at Old Post Office Holiday Cottages in Northumberland talk about dog wallpaper, pre-weighed coffee beans and Bye for Now bags.

When you can be bothered – they notice.

A rare, rare skill that – I think – is getting ever-rarer.
Is being bothered.
Have a think about that for a moment.
(If you can be bothered).
Because tucked away behind this notion, are business and a life opportunities – for all of us.

It’s a great question.
And, I suppose, it’s also how to be really rude to somebody at a party.
(If I ever got invited to parties, that is.
Hmmm).

Scenario One.
“Mark, hello! I’ve not seen you for ages. This is Paul. Paul and I came here together. Paul… Meet Mark.”
“Hey,  hello Paul. I’m Mark. Good to meet you.”
“Good to meet you too Mark. We’ve never bumped into each other have we?”
“No. First time. So… What the divvel do you do, Paul? ”
Etc.

Scenario Two.
“Mark, hello! I’ve not seen you for ages. This is Paul. Paul and I came here together. Paul… Meet Mark.”
“Hey,  hello Paul. I’m Mark. Good to meet you.”
“Good to meet you too Mark. We’ve never bumped into each other have we?”
“No. First time. So… what the divvel are you for, Paul? ”
Etc.

OK, so “What the divvel are you for?” is a bit rude.
But also an infinitely more interesting question than, “What do you do?”
And it’s a question that we ask ourselves, more and more, about ourselves.
Especially as we get older.
At least – I do.

In real life, I never ask this question question out loud.
But I look for the answer to this question in how people are.
I look for the answer to this question in what people actually do.
I don’t look for the answer to this question in what people say to me.
Talk’s easy.
I think when a person knows what they’re for.
It turns up in how they are and what they actually do.
They can’t help that.

“What are you for?”
It’s a great question.
And, I suppose, it’s how to be really rude to somebody at a party.
(If I ever got invited to parties, that is.
Hmmm).