Brain Reel #1
Goals, poetry, science, and my very first newsletter..!
EDIT: New sign-up link is HERE.
I’ve decided to start a newsletter called Brain Reel.
It’s a fortnightly-ish collection of whirling thoughts, awesome people & ideas, and updates on what on Earth I do for a living.
Seen as I have a grand total of 1 subscribers right now (*ahem* It may be my other email as a test *ahem*), I thought I’d post it here so you lovely lot can take a look, and hopefully subscribe to the next one — which you can do here!
Enjoy!
So it’s 2018, I’m into Year Two of freelancing, and — as a self-confessed email newsletter addict — I’ve finally got round to creating my own wee TinyLetter!
I’ve called it *Brain Reel* for a few reasons:
- I never know how to describe what I do for a living (honestly, if you have any ideas, I’m all ears), but one thing I do know is that my work centres around getting thoughts out of my head into some kind of coherent format for others — sometimes more successfully than others
- There’s always more to say and share and comment on and speak about than people will pay me to do — so I thought this newsletter could be the place for some of that overspill
- I love gathering random ideas and thoughts from all over the shop, and mixing them up with my own — I hope some of the things I share can add to your own brain reel in some way
With that said, here goes…
Type A Heaven
It’s January, which means GOAL-SETTING-GALORE.
I’m a total sucker for life planning. Give me an excel sheet, a list of variables on which to measure my life and an undisturbed couple of hours, and I’ll be 100% happy in Type A heaven. I also love to change my planning methods regularly (so you can do even more planning!) and love to hear how other people set about structuring their goals.
Recently, I used a combination of this excel glory from Chris Guillebeau, and this beaut doodle planner by Richard Hylerstedt (he makes a new one of these each year, just FYI) to sort my life out, and a few of my pals and I have created an ACCOUNTABILITY Whatsapp group #myfriendsarecoolerthanyourfriends
I’m most likely in denial about my mild obsession with planning and goals, but it really acts as an anchor for my relatively unstructured life as a freelancer.
*Ticks box for sending newsletter*
🤓
I’m Now a Poetry Buff
It was Burn’s night last week [if you don’t know what that is, go read this then come back]. By sheer coincidence, I went to a birthday party on the 25th where everyone was asked to bring a poem (it was bloody delightful). And so in the process of researching a glorious Scottish poem to take along, I became an overnight poetry buff.
If you’re Scottish (and not living in Scotland) you’ll cry at love this one
If you’re having an emotional January, you’ll cry at love this one
If you fancy a bit of Dr Suess poetry ‘cos everyone loves Dr Suess poetry and let’s face it we don’t read this poem often enough, you’ll cry at love this one
P.S. Sitting in your flat alone, reading poetry out loud, having a cry then a laugh then a self-smile is officially the best kind of hobby.
💆
‘I Just Came for the Science’
The section where I actually talk about some of the stuff I’m paid to talk about:
My boyfriend Lawrence moaned at me approximately 1200 times to read this 2014 interview with Sydney Brenner, and now I understand why. It outlines so much of why we started Science: Disrupt, and Sydney is so eloquent and modest we are now desperate to get him on the podcast (intros to the 91 year old Nobel Prize winner are very welcome…)
This month, I wrote about how human hibernation may be the key to long haul spaceflight for Singularity Hub, and am chatting about it at Creative Mornings x Eve Sleep in London tomorrow!
Mental science startups everyone should know:
Positron Dynamics — antimatter rocket propulsion
Finless Foods — lab-grown fish
Rigetti Computing — full-stack quantum computing
🔬
Do you like Stones and Weightlifting and Scotland?
Yes?
Then watch this cracking documentary about the culture, history and people behind the lifting stones.
💪
Even. More. Newsletters.
I’m not kidding when I say that I *love* a newsletter.
It’s such a lovely way to be delivered news, ideas, general musings and updates — and it saves me from having to check all my favourite blogs and websites repeatedly. When I get the chance, I’ll write a Medium post detailing my favourites, but for now, here’s 3 I think you should give a go:
The Listserve — a random person every day gets to send an email to this huge list of subscribers. They can say anything. Some give recommendations. Some lament the state of the world. Most share advice, and really make you think.
Ten Things — by Luke Leighfield, who’s a copywriter, musician, runner and all manner of other things. He has great taste in articles, music, documentaries and general ‘stuff’. I look forward to receiving this.
Love Will Save The Day — every Friday at 11am, you get this insane homage to music in the form of a playlist curated by Jed Hallam. I’m not great at discovering music, so this is PERFECT for me. He even writes out why he chooses each song, and the playlists always surprise, delight and move me. They’re also fab to work to.
✏️
I do Love an Event
Just a few places you’ll see me chatting science, tech and other wonderful things:
Feb 1st, London — Creative Mornings x Eve Sleep
Feb 7th, London — Humans of HealthTech
Mar 14th, Austin TX — SXSW: Building an Ecosystem for Science Startups
Mar 20th, London — Tech & The Future of Health
🎙
And that’s it for Brain Reel #1!
Do hit reply / comment below and let me know if you liked it (or not), or have any ideas for future editions, or want to nerd out about stones or poems or science etc…
If newsletters aren’t really your thing but you want to stay in touch, first of all THANKS for reading all the way to here, and second — you can catch me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Goodreads, Medium, or through my website.
Until next time,
Gemma
🚀
So if you fancy signing up for Brain Reel, you are awesome— you can do so here!
Think someone else would like this newsletter?
Tweet about it or simply forward to a friend, and I’ll be super grateful!
