A zine about the chasms between research and writing and writing and publishing. Available to download in today’s newsletter.
Date stamps
Today’s newsletter was about date stamps. Don’t miss the comments, which included this lovely short documentary about Casey Rubber Stamps in NYC:
This great idea for keeping to-do lists:
Here's my Date Stamp setup! I laser-cut a box to hold 3×5 cards in 2 sections: new and used. Each day I pull out a new card, stamp the date, write my to-do list, and then put it in the "used" section the next day.
If I can't fit my list on here, that's too much to do in a day! pic.twitter.com/RQPBaJzkkN
— Kathryn Marinaro (@kathrynmarinaro) November 9, 2021
And The Four Horsemen in Brooklyn (opened by one of my favorite musicians, James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem) where they date stamp the menu:
I love this little nascent community we’ve got happening over there. I hope you will join us and subscribe!
How to make a map of your mind

I wrote about making mind maps in last Tuesday’s free bonus newsletter, “How to make a map of your mind.” I also recorded myself making one:
Newsletter 2.0
“Everything changes. Don’t be afraid.”
—Al Swearengen, Deadwood
My newsletter, which I’ve been mailing out since 2013, is now hosted on Substack.
Here’s the deal:
- The Friday “10 things worth sharing” newsletter will not change and it will always remain free to anyone who wants to sign up.
- On Tuesdays, I’ll send out a bonus email to paying subscribers. Sometimes it’ll be an illustrated essay, a tool I can’t live without, a technique I use, a favorite book from my collection, or another exclusive behind-the-scenes peek at my process. Paying subscribers will also get the ability to comment and join special discussion threads.
I want to note that I’m not taking any deal or any money from Substack. I picked them because I like their tool. It’s simple and clean and has what I need to keep doing the old thing but also do some new things.
The Friday newsletter means a lot to me and I love doing it and I want to keep doing it indefinitely. It’s my ritual, my way of looking back at the days and keeping track of the weeks. Lots of people tell me it’s become a ritual for them, too, which delights me.
I hope this new Tuesday email will be a fun place to experiment — to show my work — and we can maybe even build a little community and hopefully learn something from each other.
Thank you to everyone who’s read the newsletter over the years and shared it far and wide.
If you’re not signed up, you can subscribe now:
Questions for a new technology (newsletter)

Hey y’all,
Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:
- Questions for technology.
- The September pick for our Read Like An Artist book club is Rob Walker’s The Art of Noticing!
- Art requires a sacrifice and a risk.
- Feels like the end of an era: My publisher, Workman, one of the largest independents, is being acquired by Hachette.
- Werner Herzog is publishing two new books. (An avid reader, he has famously said that he might be a better writer than a filmmaker.)
- After retweeting some love for Pilot G2 gel pens, several people recommended Sharpie’s S-Gel series. They’re pretty good! (See other pens I like in my list of favorite gear.)
- TV: I wrote about the significance of a snippet of Tennyson’s poetry recited in The White Lotus. (If you’ve watched the series, I recommend this spoiler-filled exit interview with creator Mike White.)
- Nestflix is a search engine for movies within movies.
- RIP composer R. Murray Schafer. I love his teaching that silence is ear cleaning.
- Reminder: “One must cultivate one’s own garden.”
Thanks for reading. This newsletter is free, but not cheap. You can help it keep going: forward it to someone who’d like it, read my books, shop for some of my favorite gear(I get a cut), buy a t-shirt, or hire me to speak.
If you’re seeing this newsletter for the first time, you can read previous issues and subscribe here.
xoxo,
Austin
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