Fictions - a newsletter for writers.

I thought I would write a short post to unpack a little, some of the strands that the blog and the Fictions newsletter are about. I publish it every month. You can read past editions here. I don't email every post I write to you, I think it's better if it's curated and I can also point to more resources which I hope are of use to you.

The blog and newsletter are about looking at writing and how to improve as a writer, yes. From a craft point of view, but also bringing wider mental models to bear on our approach to creating work. These mental models are from a range of disciplines.

I get a lot from the writing of the late Charlie Munger, who used mental models from a whole rage of disciplines to improve his decision making. I've used models like coaching before, in the script development process. Munger estimated he used over a hundred in his decision making process.

It’s also about the lives of writers’ and books which inspire us – which clarify our thinking about things. That widen our frame of reference, and lead us to places which were previously unknown to us. 

It’s about finding mentors (still living or not), it's about language and also, learning how to learn.

Fictions, according to the writing Borges, are the stories we tell ourselves, or to others, which make sense of the world for us. 

These are the stories we tell about our day, framing it, framing how we think about it. There are also fictions, models of how to look at the world. Trying to make sense of the world through discovering underlying patterns.

We can bring the models to bear on our writing and how we produce work.

I have also started the Fictions podcast, which develops these themes in conversations with writers, dramaturgs and artists. There's only one episode at the moment, but more to come soon.

If these themes interest you, do subscribe and pass it on to any other people you think might benefit from this content. Thanks for reading,

Iain