Stay in touch!
I send emails on a quarterly cadence. I’d love to include you! For a taste, I’ve archived most of them below.
We wrote a manifesto
FEB. 2023
It’s 700 words on disrupting publishing. Please send your comments & forward to a bookish friend! :)
Thanks,
Ellen
21 down, 4 to go!
DEC. 2022
Hey everyone!
One of my goals for 2022 has been to send physical copies of my book to real recipients in 25+ countries.
I've been deeply moved by people's support & enthusiasm!
The first copy of Spacefaring was sold on June 9, 2022. By September 1, Spacefaring had landed in 10 countries. →
As of today, December 1, Spacefaring has been shipped to real recipients in 21 countries. →
4 more countries to go… 🦾
If you know a reader outside of the 21 countries listed below, please email me. I'll personally sign & send these 4 books for free. :)
Australia
Austria
Canada
Cyprus
France
Greece
India
Indonesia
Israel
Japan
Mexico
Malaysia
Nigeria
Portugal
Saudi Arabia
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
United States
🖖
Thanks for reading & stay creative,
Ellen -- ellen@writing.coach
Midjourney adventures
SEPT. 2022
What happens when you let a poet loose on an art-generating AI chatbot?
I’m finding out! 🤩
Here are my first few experiments with Midjourney (starting with a quick explanation) on a webpage and on Twitter.
🖖 stay creative!
Ellen
First foray into print publishing
JUNE 2022
It took 11 months, but my team made it happen: my book is in print! 📖 We took one of the roads less traveled within the publishing realm, setting foot on the manufacturing floor of a fantastic family-owned printshop along the way. It was a fun challenge. You can get the story here & book here. I hope you enjoy!
🖖
Ellen
P.S. if you're feeling magnanimous, please share the tweet :)
Prediction for 2084
NOVEMBER 2021
“Hope. Damn thing never leaves you alone.”
That's one of the great lines from Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, and this email is my 60-second pitch for the book.
BLUF (bottom line up front): In 2084, people will be reading Klara like it’s 1984. It's prophecy, not fiction.
Publishers are calling it sci-fi, but the real genre is Ishiguro. No one comes close to this guy. He's peerless in his command of atmosphere, deliberate momentum, and unique first-person narration—and that's all just craft mastery. That stuff is mechanical. Even more importantly, Ishiguro has super-rare conceptual vision. He writes not only to tell a beautiful story, but because he can see something invisible, and he wants to show it to us.
Klara, I think, is Ishiguro's red alert about dwindling empathy. To do that, he builds the unforgettable character of Klara: a solar-powered robot who is, somehow, the most sentient presence in the room. She even finds religion, and we witness her most fervent, private prayers.
- Ellen
P.S. hat tip to the always thoughtful Steve Peskind for the intel about this book.
Fairly important
AUGUST 2021
Marc Tarpenning, who co-founded Tesla in 2003, recently came up with a company he'd start in 2021, if he had the relevant expertise. If you happen to know a serious brainiac who's interested in sustainability, he or she might find this information useful.
Have a great August!
- Ellen
14 years + 6 months
JUNE 2021
Hello! I just finished a new e-book. It's called Spacefaring, and it took me 14 years to write it. I don't have much to say, personally, beyond what's there.
All I want to add is this: during the 6 months since I last wrote to you, I've been honored to collaborate nonstop with outstanding people to delight readers around the globe. Here's ~30% of the writing I'm proud to have co-created in 2021:
The Gatekeeper Shrugged by my best friend Pavel Brodsky
Superpowers by Gagan Biyani
Apollo's Arrow and a Tweetstorm about Sanjay Subrahmanyan by Shripriya Mahesh
The API Universe is (Still) Underrated by Baris Aksoy
Why You're Christian and The Microwave Economy by David Perell
The Future 70% of Welsh People Want by Scott Flear
Getting buy-in by Shivani Berry on Lenny's Newsletter
The Best Women's Health Companies Will Add New Knowledge by Sara Eshelman
Indirect Value Capture by Andrew Parker
Anti-Luddism by Marc Tarpenning
How to Disarm the Straw Man Fallacy by Vishal Sharma
Seeing the Ball by Adam Draper
What Are The Odds? by Ugur Kaner
I think each of these is a thought-provoking and deeply enjoyable reading experience, which is why I helped out. Congratulations to everyone on this list for your beautiful work. :)
Onward!
- Ellen
COMPOSE framework for writing
JANUARY 2021
Hey there!
I'm excited to share my team's new framework for writing: COMPOSE.
There's a Tweetstorm, too.
Stay creative. :)
Ellen
Zero to One
OCTOBER 2020
Today, I’m proud to share 3 things:
1. I’ve been collaborating with Marc Tarpenning, who co-founded Tesla, and he's launching his first newsletter. Marc is a man of extraordinary intelligence, integrity, and humility. I’ve learned a lot from him already—you probably don’t want to miss his emails.
2. I’ve published another “reverse engineering” article: What makes Zero to One a masterpiece?
3. Stoicism has been on my mind, so I wrote a poem called The Obstacle is the Way.
Stay creative,
Ellen
What makes Paul Graham a great writer?
JULY 2020
In my #1 career dream, I’m the Paul Erdős of writing. Erdős was a whimsical mathematician who saw math as a social pursuit—something that could fuel lifelong friendships. Over about 60 years, he worked with more than 500 collaborators on 1,500 papers; he got to know every prominent mathematician of his era, and he helped many young mathematicians get started in the field.
Right now, I’m closer to that dream than I’ve ever been.
In collaboration with my accomplished writing mentor Dr. William Jaworski, I wrote an essay about what makes Paul Graham’s writing so outstanding.
I’m proud to have contributed to my good friend Pavel Brodsky’s latest piece, In Defense of Exclusivity. In it, Pavel elegantly articulates some ideas that are close to my heart, but which I’ve often struggled to verbalize. It’s awesome to see a friend expressing things I've felt tongue-tied about.
Neal Khosla created a cool new mental model he calls The Intellectual Identity-Forming Loop, and I'm honored to have contributed to his process.
Finally, I'm still super excited to be helping David Perell cultivate his talent as a writer. We worked together on Don't Kill Time, and there's another (ambitious) piece in the pipeline.
*
Thanks for reading! If you know anyone who'd appreciate my mission to become the Paul Erdős of writing, I hope you'll forward this email along. :)
Top 3 writing apps
MAY 2020
Quick note on something people ask me about: writing tools.
1) Power Thesaurus ($0) - Best thesaurus I've used. It's crowdsourced, which means the synonyms are suggested & rated by users.
2) Hemingway App ($0 in browser, $20 desktop) - Almost as helpful as a human editor. I use this all the time to make my writing more crisp.
3) Ulysses ($5/mo, $40/yr, Mac/iOS) - I love Ulysses so much that I wrote up my personal experience for their blog, no kickbacks or any incentives like that. Give it a whirl if you need a clean, calm place to write.
Have a good weekend!
Ellen
Learning as the New Redemption
APRIL 2020
// This is my first formal meditation on what "learning" means.
Few words are as loaded as the word “redemption.” For some people, it carries an aura of sacredness: It’s an experience of salvation, catharsis, and forgiveness. For others, though, redemption feels like a relic from our history, giving off the unpalatable odor of fanaticism. I imagine that’s why usage of the word has declined over 200 years.
The word "redemption" in books since 1800, via Ngram:
I sympathize with the secular folks — those who feel uneasy with the baptized-by-fire connotation of redemption. Yet, at the same time, I hesitate to retire such a potent word without wrestling with it first.
I found myself wondering, “Can there be a more modern-sounding corollary to the idea of redemption?”
At first, I thought maybe “enlightenment” could be that corollary. But that didn’t sit quite right with me. After all, the word “enlightenment” has two very specific meanings: it’s a Buddhist concept, and it also refers to a Western intellectual movement. Also, to me, the idea of enlightenment simply doesn’t jive with the feeling of redemption. It’s not the same sentiment.
I thought, “Have I ever had a non-religious experience that felt something like redemption?”
Yeah, I have. It’s called learning.
The word "learning" in books since 1800, via Ngram:
“In times of change, learners inherit the earth,” wrote the brilliant Eric Hoffer.
Many more have waxed poetic about the power of learning, and for good reason — learning is spectacularly powerful. Learning makes it possible to forgive yourself for past mistakes and failures. Proving you’ve “learned your lesson” makes it possible for others to forgive you, too.
Learning is the key to mending brokenness in your life and relationships. The ability to learn can give you the courage to face danger, risk, and the unknown. Knowing how to learn gives you resilience to rejection, criticism, and even defeat. The lifelong practice of learning unlocks an ongoing experience of meaning, direction, excitement, and hope. Most of all, true learning is intrinsically rewarding.
I believe lifelong learners understand redemption. When they fail, when they suffer, when they’re criticized, lifelong learners can arise again with hope for the future. They can admit past mistakes (a.k.a. “sins”), make amends, and repair their lives. Personally, I think the sun never sets on a lifelong learner.
So, maybe learning is the new redemption. Maybe the first step to bridging barriers, and seeing eye to eye, is showing evidence of learning. Maybe whenever we’re divided, broken, or lost, we can look to learning for a kind of salvation, catharsis, and forgiveness all at once. Maybe learning can dissolve hostility and judgment. And maybe, just maybe, learning is something that deserves our fanaticism.
Have YOU ever found redemption through learning?
Stay creative,
Ellen