– Glenn Fisher, at home, Sheffield, January 2026

12TH: IT’S EASIER TO JUST CALL

Halfway through a WhatsApp exchange, Nick realises it would just be easier to call and does so. It takes me a minute to figure out how to put it on speaker. In that time, he loses his thought and points out that we should change the way we do Fix emails. That’s not why I’m calling, he says. But we talk about it for another five minutes because that’s how it works when you have lots of different ideas. You follow one thread, but that leads to another, and as a copywriter, you have to follow those new threads while leaving the others hanging.

We’d spoken months ago about the idea of turning the letter into a diary format, which would probably make things easier for us—saving up anecdotes rather than trying to riff something each day. And it would probably be interesting and possibly useful for other writers to genuinely hear the kind of shit we get up to each day writing copy, coaching other copywriters, and organising events.

Interesting and possibly useful is one of our foundational mantras, so here we are. Like with James Joyce before us, from now on, you’ll receive a twice-monthly stream of consciousness missive from us. One from me and one from Nick, in which we’ll stream said consciousness directly from our minds into yours and recount the highlights—or more likely, the lowlights—of our shared diary. We hope you find it interesting and possibly useful. If you don’t, you know where the exits are.

6TH (MAYBE): GET WITH THE PROGRAM, PESTON

Saw a reel on Instagram with Robert Peston talking about Trump’s intention to take over Greenland. Peston is a journalist in the UK, in part famous for being said to have predicted/caused the 2008 crash and in part for being scruffy. Made me chuckle as he was pontificating that the real reason Trump is saying all this stuff is to get access to the minerals under Greenland, which we need for iPhones and AI, etc. He was saying it like it was new and startling information, and only he really knew it. I don’t know exactly, but I would guess there was financial copy coming out of Agora/MarketWise editors at least two years ago on this very point. Bill Bonner has likely been writing about it for decades. It’s not the first time stuff I’ve read in financial copy is years ahead of the mainstream. It’s just a timely reminder—and there’s something interesting in it.

2ND: I’M NO ELON MUSK, BUT…

Everyone seems to be off work, not quite ready to come back after the holidays just yet. Likewise, I don’t need to work today. BUT. I’m currently working on a sales promotion for MarketWise with a rough January deadline. Even though I know I’ve got some time and that I’ve booked out my time over the first few weeks of the month to make sure I’m covered, I still spend some of the day thinking about the project and writing. I know Kelly Brown, the Copy Chief over at MarketWise, encourages her in-house writers to write every day, and I’m a big believer in the idea. Indeed, the New Year period used to always remind me why it’s so important

When I used to write a daily newsletter for Agora in the UK, I’d stop over Christmas and New Year. Come my first day back, I’d rock into the office, grab a coffee, sit down and my computer, and then—shit. How does this work? What do I write? How do I write? The same used to happen every year, and whenever I took a break for a holiday, too. Writing often—even a little—keeps you in form. More than that, it has a cumulative effect, so it gets easier. It was the same with bands back when I used to tour the country. You’d play with certain bands who had done a few nights in a row, and you could tell they were “gig tight”—they had a tightness and togetherness that only playing regularly night after night can bring.

Of course, take holidays and breaks. I’m not saying you shouldn’t, and I’m not some Musk character who works 24 hours a day and never stops for lunch. I guess two key points for me here. On a micro-level, when you’re on a job, make sure you’re always on. On a macro-level, scheduling some time to write a little every day (even if it’s just a blog post, a lift note, or a speculative piece) will keep you sharper and make your life a whole lot easier in the long run. It’ll make you gig-tight.

10TH: ROADSIDE RECOVERY

Spent half of our live mentoring session discussing time management after one of our mentees asked how to handle the shift back from freelance to 9 to 5. Pointed out a lot of stuff, but perhaps the biggest takeaway was that both Nick and I seem to follow a similar approach of having at least one main and consequential task to carry out each day, which we both focus on as a priority for the day. Other stuff that gets done each day is a bonus.

Went out to do the food shop straight from the calls, only to get back into my car at the supermarket to find it wouldn’t start. Lost the rest of the afternoon waiting for roadside recovery. Thankfully, I’d already done my main job that day.

SOME TIME OVER THE HOLIDAYS: SILLY MEN

Nick WhatsApps telling me we’ve paid the deposit to hire an 18th-century lodge in Ireland for the mastermind-type event we’re holding later this year. The deposit alone is in the tens of thousands. It’s not the first time we’ve done something so silly. But no matter how many times you do these things, it always seems silly. Or risky. Is silly and risky the same thing? Probably not. But I guess there’s something in the fact we see it as both—and perhaps it goes some way to explain how we’re able to pull such risky silliness off.

Or maybe we are just stupid.

Best,
Glenn