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I had a few replies over the last few emails, especially the last one with the audio and where I just asked how everyone is.

Like some internet vibe check or whatever you want to call it.

Surprisingly. Everyone’s a little tired.

Tired of the uncertainty with all of these grifters peddling A.I.

Tired with all of the divides with politics and wars.

I mean we all know the world is absolutely upside down right now and it almost looks like nothing is going to go back to “normal”

1 humble disciple of yours truly asked me about what I do when it comes to turning off the noise and all that jazz.

And honestly. I really don’t do anything special. I don’t meditate. I don’t do any of these introversion type of spirit animal focus.

All I do. Which is very boring on the front is write.

I sit down and put words on paper. It’s one way I find to just get out all of the crap. The stresses and potential ideas.

Funny thing is though because we’re in an always on society. We’re looking for things online to better our lives. To take us to a place or nirvana where we can be free and all of that.

And when we are looking online on social media and all other platforms, we get lied to.

We compare our chapter one to the others and their chapter 72.

So we spiral and feel deflated on all fronts.

But when you sit alone with no distractions and write. Whether it’s pen on paper (Preferable) or you’ve got a word doc with all your notifications/phone turned off. That’s where you can do some serious soul searching for lack of a better phrase.

And as cliche as I know that answer is. It works like magic. I’ve even said in past emails that writing is the closet thing we have when it comes to magic and manifestation.

The downside is. It takes a fudge load of work. Like having those hard conversations with the gf/bf or husband/wife etc.

It also doesn’t happen over night. It takes weeks/months/years to slowly find out who you are. It’s no TikTok over night fucker-y.

And so it is in the mind of how I figure these things out. One sentence at a time.

Whether I’m selling something with words, or entertaining my fellow nerds. It starts with a page and some thinking.

Appreciate everyone who listened/replied to the last voice tape email. I guess I’m not too bad eh?

Stephen Walker

http://facebook.com/stphnwlkr

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Stephen Walker
Unit 146317
PO Box 7169
Poole
BH15 9EL
United Kingdom

I just read this article and my brain is currently doing that thing where it tries to crawl out through my nose.

I posted about it on FB but I thought eh, you love a bit of my rant-y type posts, but let me re-write it cause why not?

“Nick Clegg: Artists’ demands over copyright are unworkable”

“The former Meta executive claims that a law requiring tech companies to ask for permission to train AI on copyrighted work would ‘kill’ the industry.”

Do I have this right? (With all sarcasm intended)

Some college kid torrents The Mandalorian? PRISON!!!11!

Tech billionaire builds entire empire on wholesale intellectual property theft? “Too complicated to prosecute, uwu”

That’s the take?

Now usually I’d love to speak to someone who makes some stupid statement like that.

Like “I’m gonna need you to walk me through this real slow like because right now my neurons are staging a mass die off event” kind of thing.

You’re telling me. You’re actually telling me, that we should crack down on individuals but when Richie Rich McMoneybags does it at scale, suddenly the law becomes “unworkable”?

Like some kind of legal Schrödinger’s Cat where crimes both exist and don’t exist depending on your net worth?

And this “industry” they’re worried about protecting?

Which one?

The one where:

Regular people get cease and desist letters that read like death threats?

While billionaires get think pieces about how prosecuting them might be “too hard”

Where theft is only theft when poor people do it?

Where “innovation” is just rich people speak for “I took your shit and made money”

That industry?

Because from where I’m sitting (currently in a puddle of my own confusion), it sounds like you’re defending the Theft Industry. The Grand Fucking Larceny Industry. The “Rules for Thee But Not for Me” Industry.

Sir Nick Clegg can get fuxed.

But honestly. Someone explain this to me like I’m five. Or drunk. Or a drunk five year old. Because right the logic is making about as much sense as a meat bicycle in a vegan parade.

If you want to read the article. I’ve slapped it into a google doc cause all of these paywalled B.S. peddlers need to get bent.

Stephen Walker

P.S. If Nick’s next thinkpiece contains the phrase “it’s complicated,” I’m gonna need you to know that my laptop might spontaneously combust from the sheer concentrated bullshit radiation.

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Stephen Walker
Unit 146317
PO Box 7169
Poole
BH15 9EL
United Kingdom

Years ago when I was living in London.

Every Friday we’d have what we like to call a Drink and Draw.

Very long story short. We’d go to the local Wetherspoons (back when it wasn’t completely ass) cause we knew the owner.

When the time came to kick everyone else out. A bunch of us would be invited to stay over for a few more hours, go upstairs and push a couple of tables together.

Then we’d roll out this massive piece of industrial sized roll-y paper across the table. We’d grab our drinks and then for then next few hours we’d chat some shit, draw penises and write poetry on this massive wad of paper and have a good old time.

In between that. I’d be balancing a whiskey sour in my hand, after getting up and huddling over the sticky bar top to grab another round, on top of tapping out hints of an email while balanced precariously on a rickety barstool.

(I could swear it was about to collapse, but hey, that’s was half the fun during that night)

Some of us worked in advertising. Some of us were artists and some of us were students. It was one of the best times we had as we all had this thing we were doing. There was chaos and there was shenanigans…

So one night, after we’d thrown back one too many tequila shots. I mentioned Gary Provost’s quote about creating music with your sentences…

The quote went something like this:

“This sentence has five words. … So write with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences. … Write music.”

And a couple of the younger lads in who were fresh in the advertising game were like:

“Why can’t we just do that modern copywriting thing? One line. Then another. Then another. Forever.” Because it’s easy?

Sure I said but it just sounded robotic and the same and because everyone else was doing it. It all blended in.

I suggested a bit of variety.

Don’t get me wrong. Single sentence paragraphs have their place. But it’s sure as hell not everywhere. Jump from short to long. Slip in a mid length drift. Make your reader’s brain cells stand up and do the cha cha instead of lulling them into a trance.

There needs to be a little bit of rhythm.

Sentences can punch like a boxer or roll like an orchestral swell. You get to decide which vibe each paragraph unleashes. One liners are the perfect jab. But follow with a flourish that draws out the tension, letting your words ring in the reader’s ears, building up to that big, satisfying knockout.

And I’ve always been about music, dammit…

If you stick to one repetitive beat, your “song” (a.k.a. your writing) is just a funeral dirge of blandness. You want a soundtrack with cymbals, strings, maybe a moody synth or two. Think of each sentence as a note and you’re the DJ mixing them into a banger.

Now, look, I’m not saying never use single sentence paragraphs. Hell, they can be as cinematically thrilling as an action movie’s final showdown. But like Gary Provost says, you gotta keep things fresh. Turn those words into music, not white noise.

All I’m saying is give this writing approach a shot. Vary your sentence length.

Embrace the short, the medium, and the extravagant. Make the prose sing, dance, and occasionally cackle with unhinged glee.

We’re not about sounding boring unless that’s the way you want to be…

Now if you excuse me. I have to go grab a pint and watch grown men kick a football around for 90 mins…

Stephen Walker

And if you wanted to see Gary P’s famous little quote. Go here: https://stphnwlkr.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/garyp.jpg

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Stephen Walker
Unit 146317
PO Box 7169
Poole
BH15 9EL
United Kingdom

I’ve taken a pretty decent break from Twitter.

A lot of my writer-ly friends hang there and hidden in the trenches of #WritingCommunity and various other self pub hashtags and crying about being an indie writer, the common thing that comes up is:

“I haven’t sold any books!” or some variation of writing service they offer alongside selling their own warez.

But what makes me want to punch a wall is the whole “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” thing.

If people don’t know what’s on the menu. How are they gonna know what’s available to order?

You don’t want to be seen as one of those video game NPC characters that offer nothing but a “hey” when you talk to them…

And with A.I. taking over every platform with people posting the same old generated bullshit in MASSIVE quantities…

1 meek little post won’t cut it if you want to be seen, heard and bought from. Let alone taken seriously.

I honestly don’t care if you’ve been thinking about starting a thing. Whether you sell feet pics to the degens or want to sell your creative musings to the world.

The most important thing you need to do is show up daily and just be you.

Yeah people are going to start giving you shit, but the cool thing is. Those are the types of people who aren’t gonna support you and would probably never buy from you (Unless they have some weird rage-buying fetish…)

And that’s okay. Not everyone’s gonna be a fan.

I can yap on about this all day but it just needs to be raised every now and then.

You’re an amazing creative human and the world deserves to see, appreciate and buy your art.

So maybe this email will find you well and you’ll decided to get that idea that’s been swirling around inside of your brain meats, throw out into the world and finally get the good humans on your side, while filling your pockets with a few coins…

But for now if you need a little kick up the ass. You know what to do.

Hit reply and I’ll give you the medicine.

Stephen Walker

https://www.facebook.com/stphnwlkr

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Stephen Walker
Unit 146317
PO Box 7169
Poole
BH15 9EL
United Kingdom

I was lucky to sit down have a consultation with the man himself, Ben Settle.

Ben is like marmite as they say here in the UK.

You either love it or your hate it and the same goes for him.

His ways are deliberate and they all make sense.

So there’s no secret that I write short stories in a range of genres, across different pen names and it’s something I don’t usually talk about. Mainly because I was never sure where I wanted to take it.

The call I had with Ben today has straightened out where I need to be. Especially with the way the whole creative / writing industry is heading, especially with our A.I overlords…

And to sum up the call it was really like with a lot that he teaches…

You need to do more to build out your world and get the right people in while keeping the ones you don’t want at bay.

And with all the research I’ve done on my market/genre there’s a lot of lack in that industry for someone to step in and be a “guru” figure head.

So yeah. I’ve got the rest of 2025 mapped out and now I need to get to work.

I’d highly recommend checking out his stuff. Jump on his list and learn from him.

It doesn’t matter what you do. His ways make sense because they are rooted in old school principles.

Stephen Walker.

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Stephen Walker
Unit 146317
PO Box 7169
Poole
BH15 9EL
United Kingdom

I gave myself a little talking to today.

“Sit down. Wipe the Cheeto dust off your fingers if you must. We gotta talk.”

Me to my 18yo self basically.

As much as I could go back to my younger self and instil whatever wisdom I have painfully obtained over the years.

It still leads me back to the shitshow of 2020.

Because as much as I hate to admit it. We’re still up to our eyeballs in the same entertainment hell loop we fell into when 2020 rolled around. Remember it?

The world hit pause, and we all hit play.

Streaming became a lifestyle.

TikTok became a verb.

Zoom meetings became the place where your soul goes to die, even to this day.

(I’ve got one tomorrow and it’s the only one I’m actually looking forward to haha)

And somewhere, in whatever online wreckage came about, you and I became… content consumers.

Like rats pushing the dopamine lever. It all started to become weirdly addictive.

Everything evolved. (Like COVID, but less respiratory failure and more terminal cringe)

Now, you can’t just passively scroll, doom or otherwise.

You gotta be a guru.

A Thought Leader™.

A “personal brand.”

Which, let’s be honest, is just a fancy way of saying “the internet wants you to cosplay as Tony Robbins with an Instagram filter and a newsletter.”

But why?

Because the internet is bubbling over with festering A.I. generated slop.

Articles that read like a blender full of SEO keywords and corporate word salad. Shiny LinkedIn posts with zero actual human fingerprints (or, hell, fingerprints at all. Just smooth, uncanny valley language that makes you want to delete your brain for 48 hours)

“Experts” who’ve never done anything except regurgitate ChatGPT’s last meal.

So people…

The real, squishy, flawed, eye twitching people… are hunting for something else.

You can feel it, right?

That hunger for (and as much as I am in deep pain as I type the next word…)

Authenticity…

For the kind of artist who actually gives a damn about the craft, not just the clicks. For someone who bleeds on the page, who cares about the people they influence (even if they’re just yelling into space some days, like me, like you, like all of us)

And the thing is. There’s a craving for connection.

Being a “guru” is just the latest side quest.

You don’t need to be the all knowing oracle on a mountaintop. You just have to be the least bullshitty person in the room.

And if you’ve seen what’s passing for that online. It’s a low bar. So step over it.

Share your screw ups. Your weird hobbies. Your unhealthy obsession with Inbox Zero or Days Gone.

I’m still not over that post apocalyptic video game. It’s a support group at this point…

A.I. is the new gluten.

Everyone’s either allergic to it or pretending they are.

So what do you do?

You write like a human.

You bleed, sweat, and occasionally cry into your keyboard.

You call out the fakes, the flakes, the “look at me, I’m a thought leader because my bot said so” types.

And the real sauce is:

You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be real.

You have to give a shit about the art, the audience, and the impact.

And if you’re worried about being too much, too weird, too honest? Just lean in.

So, yeah. We’re still stuck in the entertainment era. A hamster wheel powered by memes, robots, and the occasional clown with a chainsaw, but now, if you want to survive, you have to be the human in the room.

The one who cares.

The one who creates, not just for the bots, but for the person on the other side of the screen.

Be the anti-bot.

Be the artist.

Be the kind of “guru” who admits they’re full of shit sometimes, but keeps showing up anyway.

TL;DR version:

We’re still in the content circus. Now, more than ever, being a real, messy, passionate human is your only ticket out of the A.I. funhouse. So grab your chainsaw. Let’s go cause some trouble.

Stephen Walker

https://www.facebook.com/stphnwlkr

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Stephen Walker
Unit 146317
PO Box 7169
Poole
BH15 9EL
United Kingdom

You know the drill. You’re sitting there, staring at the blinking cursor.

The coffee’s cold, your brain feels like a sad lump of potato salad left out at a barbecue, and the only thing you’re creating is a growing sense of dread.

Then it happens. Your body betrays you.

You blink. Maybe just a little too slow. And BAM. The Sandman sucker punches you, dragging you into the abyss of an unplanned nap.

When you wake up. Disoriented, drooling, and for a minute or two you think you’re either back in 1996 or the middle of an apocalypse…

You think, “Well, that was useless.”

But oh, my sweet, groggy friend, you couldn’t be more wrong…

Nap are the secret sauce to my creativity.

I always think of naps as some sort of mental car wash.

Power washing off all the grime of overthinking. You wake up with that weird, half dream haze, where ideas start connecting in ways they wouldn’t when you’re awake.

(Why does the villain in your story suddenly need a pet ostrich? Who cares. It’s genius. I’m gonna run with it)

There’s also this post nap weirdness.

That foggy, groggy state? Pure gold. It’s like your brain hasn’t quite reloaded all its filters yet, so your thoughts are raw, unpolished, uninhibited. You’re too disoriented to judge yourself, which means you’re primed to create something unexpected.

We don’t want perfection cause that is boring. Chaos is where all the good shit lives.

You know how your computer works better after you reboot it?

Same deal with your brain. That short nap hits the reset button on your mental processes, giving you a fresh perspective. Even if you wake up feeling like you’ve been hit by a truck driven by a drowsy clown.

So keep a notebook handy. When you wake up, write down whatever weird ass thoughts are floating around in your head. Don’t worry if they make sense. “Purple cactus apocalypse” might not mean anything now, but it could be the seed of your next big idea.

People on social media are trying to tell you not to lean into the weird.

I say do the opposite.

That post nap haze is where the good stuff lives. You’d be silly to fight it…

Embrace it. Write the things, draw the things, create the things.

Keep the naps short. Preferably 30-45 minutes. You don’t wanna be dancing with Sleep Purgatory. There is no creativity there. Only grumpiness…

I guess I could say this is some sort of self care routine too.

Self deprivation does the same thing too but that is not something I’d recommend. Unless you want think up some genuine nightmare fuel for your next horror story.

Well. It’s just after 9pm here now and that nap served me well.

Stephen Walker

https://www.facebook.com/stphnwlkr

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Stephen Walker
Unit 146317
PO Box 7169
Poole
BH15 9EL
United Kingdom

Heading into a nice little sun filled weekend.

I just wanted to take the time to say thank you and how much I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to read and reply to my shenanigans.

I’ve made people laugh, cry or irrationally angry over technology, business, psychology and even books, movies and series.

I don’t do it to be malicious. I do it because I care about all of those things that line up in the creative world and all of the shifts that are happening.

And if I can give you a little option to think differently about a topic. I’ll write about it here.

I’ll keep showing up daily as always.

I appreciate you for sticking around and I’ll catch you later.

Time to go soak up the last little bit of Sun of the day…

Stephen Walker

P.S. If you want to keep up with my random memes, shit posts and occasionally wisdom drops. Come say hello over here: https://www.facebook.com/stphnwlkr

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Stephen Walker
Unit 146317
PO Box 7169
Poole
BH15 9EL
United Kingdom

Check this headline out “Netflix will show generative AI ads midway through streams in 2026”

Netflix (and every other corporate shytlord) is doubling down on ways to distract you, monetise your attention, and make “content consumption” your default state.

Meanwhile, social media feeds you carefully curated highlight reels of others…

Making it easy to feel like you, raw, real, and unpolished aren’t enough.

And the crazy thing is. The more the world tries to homogenise, commodify, and shrink you into a “target audience,” the more powerful it becomes to show up exactly as you are.

Authenticity is genuine rebellion, like going back to the punk days.

And consistency is your superpower.

Cause showing up in the way you want is what’ll set you apart.

You remember when we used to sit around the campfire when we were younger and technology wasn’t all in your face?

We’d shoot the shit, tell stories, laugh and even fall in love.

Those were the simpler times. (The better times imho)

And the thing is. People are now slowly looking for it in the online space too.

Blogs, forums and shitty sites built by solo folks and yes…

Email too.

There is a shift happening and when it takes off. If you’re showing up as your weird self every day. People we see you as the “campfire” they want to hang around.

So if you haven’t written that blog post, email or built a terribly shitty site to sell your warez…

Get to it.

Stephen Walker

Obnoxiously super long hyperlink to the article that did this write up if you’re curious to read it…

P.S. The next time Netflix tries to sell you a mid roll ad for something you don’t need, remember this… Your attention is valuable. Spend it on things (and people) that deserve it. Starting with you.

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Stephen Walker
Unit 146317
PO Box 7169
Poole
BH15 9EL
United Kingdom

So a few days ago I wrote about watching some of the classic Final Destination movies.

And tonight I thought I’d treat myself by taking myself on a date to watch the new Final Destination Bloodlines…

Let me tell you. It was equal bits cheesy and great all wrapped into one.

The thing with these types of movies is that yes they may be predictable and the characters easily guessed in terms of the roles they play…

But there is equally a reason behind why such cult fanbases emerge for the genre of these types of films.

Yeah it’s B rated horror thriller trash. But it’s my kind of trash and to be honest it’s a treasure in and of itself…

They’re easily predictible.

They always show up and are consistent throughout their genre and they always keep you guessing.

That is why from a writers POV – I love these films.

If you can show up every day.

Show your imperfections.

And show your audience your true character.

You will always win.

And so it is with these types of films and how it should be with your work.

That is it.

Follow this “pattern” and your audience will love you for it.

Stephen Walker

If you’re not diggin’ these tasty little emails anymore you can hit the unsubscribe button right here >>> unsubscribe

Stephen Walker
Unit 146317
PO Box 7169
Poole
BH15 9EL
United Kingdom