Stephen Walker – Opinionated Ad Man, Writer and Author

  • Why it’s totally okay shitpost in your writing business

    Sometimes your brain needs to breathe. I mean sometimes my “muse” is in sweatpants eating Cheetos with chopsticks while watching Reality YouTube at 3 am… If you think Shakespeare didn’t write dick jokes? You think wrong. This writing gig is hard, ass-chafing work that strips the emotional epidermis from your soul faster than a belt…

  • Alpha Bro Bootcamps are the saddest money grab I’ve ever seen

    Dear Soon To Be Alpha Are you tired of women treating you like the human equivalent of room temperature mayonnaise? Exhausted from being ignored by society because your testosterone levels register somewhere between “houseplant” and “damp sock”? Sick of other men. Real men, getting all the respect, women, and prime parking spots? Good news! For…

  • 103 days

    …and 103 emails since I’ve had to restart this wacky list of misfits Getting my ass booted off a platform I enjoyed has definitely changed the way I view the whole online space. But the main thing I took away was: Nothing is promised and can be taken away without any explanation… So where you…

  • Coffee shop hero

    A dead coffee shop is not a good coffee shop (Even if the coffee is amazing) So I go there to get my daily bean juice fix and it’s silent. Like you can drop a pin silent. So I ask the owner if they’ve got any socials set up and with a quick google I…

  • Fundamentals beat the quick-fix bs

    There are no shortcuts. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. The tactics over principles mindset is a festering, pustulent lie that needs to be lanced and drained before it infects your entire writing practice. Tactics are the junk food of the writing world. Quick, satisfying in the moment, and ultimately hollow as a politician’s promise. Principles are…

  • Your time is not an all-you-can-eat buffet

    Time is a finite resource. Not some magical renewable wellspring that gushes forth like a geyser of productivity while you smile beatifically at yet another “quick call” that stretches into the void of eternity. NOPE. It’s more like a precious, limited-batch artisanal bourbon that everyone wants to chug like it’s discount swill at a frat…

  • When the work dries up, the weird turn pro

    Look, let’s be honest here (because why the hell not, right?) When your client work dries up like a slug on hot concrete. Poof, gone, kaput… Adios income stream. You have choices. Terrible, wonderful, absolutely batshit choices. And don’t get me wrong. This was my choice. Clients were amazing, but hey. I gotta stand on…

  • Perfection is a pyramid scheme…

    Let’s cut the bone straight up. Perfection isn’t a destination. It’s a cult. It whispers sweet nothings like “Just one more edit” and “You’re not ready yet” while it pickpockets your momentum. Perfection is a taxidermied owl. Looks wise. Is dead inside. Progress is a raccoon on Red Bull. Ugly. Alive. Ripping up your trash.…

  • A.I. is already trying to kill you

    Let’s talk about the future… You know? that thing we were promised would have flying cars and robot butlers? Turns out it’s just a tide of ChatGPT diarrhea flooding Amazon with “how-to” guides written by algorithms that think poison ivy is a salad green… Here’s a fun case for a Sunday Some chucklehead decided “expertise”…

  • How writing is the last legal black magic

    Let’s talk about the sorcery of words… Alchemy isn’t dead. It’s just traded its alembics and philosopher’s stones for pens and Google Docs. Think about it this way… Base metal? Your half-baked ideas, rotting trauma, and that weird dream about lasagna that somehow came alive. Gold? Sentences that make strangers weep, snort, or fist-pump like…

  • Friendly reminder…

    It’s okay to have some down time. The hustle bro culture has burnt out a lot of people. And yeah if you do work that you love that is amazing… But don’t become a slave to the grind. It’s exactly why I’m sending this at nearly 11pm my time. I decided this Friday was my…

  • Your brain is a liar with a knife collection

    Evert now and then I’ll get a question about how to start. So let’s cut through the prepocalypse… You want to be a writer? Painter? Nude accordionist? Cool. Here’s the secret, strapped to a rocket and aimed at your excuses… Start before you’re ready. The smart ones? They’re still stuck in the “research phase.” Reading…

  • The coffin slams shut.

    The nails hammered in with the finality of a judge’s gavel… bang, bang, bang. Inside? Ghostwriting. Your ghostwriting. That spectral little fucker you’ve been feeding for years, shovelling your voice into its gaping, incorporeal maw. (Poof. Gone. Like a fart in the church of getting paid) And honestly I still don’t know how I feel…

  • Damn, Yeezy

    People want your songs played at their funeral. As you might’ve seen. Kanye West has been going off the rails over the last few weeks. From parading his wife Bianca Censori practically naked at the Grammys. To getting banned off of Twitter for promoting a white t-shirt with a nazi symbol on it, while shamelessly…

  • Pregnancy roulette

    Unless the internet isn’t your thing… You might’ve heard of Lily Phillips, whose viral OnlyFans challenge a little concerned and rightly so a few weeks ago. Now I’m not gonna get on a soap box tell you that she shouldn’t have done something as wild as that. After all, she’s an adult and if she…

  • Why your favourite mug is secretly a cult relic

    You don’t start Sundays talking about psychoanalytic theory. But here we are… I’m feeling a little more human today but my brain still feels like it’s been punched from the back of my skull. Anyways. It’s 1953. Donald Winnicott. British baby-whisperer, Freud’s angrier cousin, dropped a nugget of truth that still rings true today 72…

  • Brain potatoes

    This flu has whooped my ass I slept 12+ hours which is a new record for me in general And my brain feels like mashed potato …So I’m just trying to get a bit of reading done in between sleeping I’m re-reading this gem right here And once you start, you can’t stop Hope you’ve…

  • Jerk-Off Justice Squad™

    I posted this in a little group on Twitter… I coach them on how to take every day articles, news and anything pop culture and turn it into a humour piece. Which you can use to send out anywhere to entertain the souls that follow you. Now check out the link below and then come…

  • It’s so damn easy. If you’re reading this, you should do it too.

    Every now and then I get asked the question: “What do you do and how do you do it?” Now if you’re reading this. You know it’s an email and it’s a simple silly email. That’s the whole thing but lemme give you a little more meat/context… It’s a business model that’s simpler than microwaving…

  • Just a little bit of doom, sir

    Emotions are uncomfortable. And there seems to exist this habit online that when people experience or display an emotion that makes us uncomfortable we feel the need to either, minimise it, challenge it or even correct it. No platform is removed from this. Not Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or even in Email. So when you…

  • The Jack Reacher school of consistency

    It’s not a secret that I love Lee Child and his writing And today I spent the day binging the Reacher series to get ready for season 3 that’s out on the 20th of this month… Now today I didn’t want to do any work or writing or whatever and frankly didn’t want to exist…

  • You can’t outrun the debt, Garrick.

    I’ve been knee deep in my notepad today writing story intro after story intro. Noodling around with words on paper seem to be one of the most cathartic things to do. The boring part is the mechanical part and that’s just re-typing it for others to read. So if you wanna pop the trunk of…

  • Marinating in anger sauce

    It’s like everyone lost their damn minds today… I wonder if it’s cause of the Super Bowl? Could be Mercury doing backflips in whatever space based juice box it’s swimming in this week. Hell, for all I know, the space gods are playing marbles with planets and we’re all catching the fallout… It’s like every…

  • £12.99 for Mediocrity?

    The man sat in the dim light of his small apartment. The television glowed. It was the only light. He watched the screen. Netflix. Always Netflix. It was his escape, his distraction, his ritual. He paid for it. Every month. Ten pounds, then twelve, now more. Always more… The email came. He read it. Price…

  • The sacred art of doing jack shit

    There’s nothing like taking a day off to do absolutely nothing. The kind where you ignore work related email, clients, and the screaming urge of capitalism to binge Shameless until your eyeballs bleed whiskey. Although in this case it was just really strong coffee. And so any responsibilities and/or client work were ignored (Mainly cause…

  • Social distance insanity

    Honestly I’m not even surprised at what happens in the world anymore. Here in the UK they’re just off the rails. There’s a flu going around again and it’s supposed to be BAD, like bird flu epidemic bad, but like anything to do with health. People will be affected by it one way or the…

  • Your brain is a dramatic quitter

    I’m sure I’m not the only person whose thought about setting their whole world on fire and starting again. I mean I’ve done it before by packing up my life as a teen and changing countries multiple times. A bit much? Probably. Fun? Yes. Would I do it again? Yes. You don’t need to quit…

  • Use the anti-calendar

    The Anti-Calendar isn’t a planner. It’s a brick through the window of what’s expected and if you go back to the 70s when the punk movement came about… This is punk but for your art. It’s a middle finger to the algorithm of what’s deemed normal in today’s society. You know? That greasy hamster wheel…

  • Consistency is a cult.

    Me, 16ish, dumb as a box of hair. Armed with a pencil chewed raw by anxiety. A library book titled Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (Betty Edwards, bless her witchy soul.) A crippling fear of failure. The book’s thesis? “Learn to see.” Not with your eyes. With your guts. Shut off the…

  • Start your list. Here’s why…

    You’re not a “creative,” you say? Bullshit. Everyone’s creative. Somewhere deep in that skull-cave of yours, there’s a spark. A glimmer. A half-formed thought that smells like burnt toast and desperation… Start an email list. Why? Because social media is a goddamn carnival of lies. It’s all filters, flexes, and false fronts. Everyone’s curating their…