🧙‍♂️ The Fellowship Newsletter

Week 6 - Becoming a Writer

Hello friend,

Welcome to the sixth edition of The Fellowship Newsletter.

Last week we conducted a skills audit. This week, I was going to write about the application process and how to write a good CV. I feel like this has been flogged to death. I would only be adding noise.

If you’d like information on that stuff, I recommend the CV Template by Stephen Semmelroth. He’s an awesome guy who owned a Cyber recruitment company before selling it. You can read some of my tips and find the link to his template on my TechSecScot website.

This week I made a huge decision. I am going to write a book.

Becoming a writer

When I was in school, I was terrible at writing. One summer, when I was ten, my father made it his mission to teach me how to write. My dad would go to his desk daily and remove an A4 writing pad. At the top of the page, he would write a title and the first sentence. It was my task to conjure up a story from my imagination.

I would spend two hours in the morning writing. It did not matter what it was that I was writing. All that mattered was that I was putting pencil to paper, forming sentences, building characters, and telling tales of catching colossal fish, winning at rugby, and climbing enormous mountains. You know, the weird stuff that a 10-year-old boy might write about.

I wouldn’t say I liked the task. I would often sit at the kitchen table, being battered by the sun through the large sliding glass door into the garden. My friends were on their bikes, playing football or catching minnows down the local stream. I was missing out on my time to play. This torture would persist for seven weeks.

The improvement in my writing was incredible. My teacher called my parents to the school to talk to them about my magical improvement over the summer holidays. I had hated every minute of my time at the kitchen table that summer, even though it had proved fruitful.  

British Army

When I was in the army, one of my jobs was to do the administration for the unit. One of the requirements was to write the daily and weekly orders for the unit commander. Essentially, I would write a daily policy that the team of over one hundred and fifty soldiers would read. It was one of the methods that the army used to document what orders had been given.

This is where I would cut my teeth on writing policies to influence behaviour. I worked out recently that in the seven years, I held that position, I would have written nearly one thousand policies for the army. 

A year under the Golden Arches

Most of you know I was a Door Supervisor. I worked for a company contracted to provide bouncers at various venues throughout Edinburgh City Centre. I worked at Market Stalls guarding them from the drunks in the small hours. I worked at public houses and nightclubs. I also worked at fast-food “restaurants”.

As you might be able to imagine, the wee small hours provide much violence, debauchery, impropriety, and entertainment. At 0300 hours, six nightclubs would vacate within a quarter mile of the venue. At that time of the morning, and with a stomach full of alcohol, the patrons of the nightclubs would make their way en-mass to “get some nuggets”. This would lead to over four hundred drunks turning up at our venue, all trying to get some food.

This type of work was stressful. Writing short stories about my shifts on the door, “under the golden arches,” was a method I used to relieve the stress of the work. I posted them to my friends on Facebook, and they became popular.

One of my friends (Sam) was a lecturer at a famous Scottish university. Without me knowing, he scraped these stories from my profile and turned them into a manuscript and had it published. He gifted the book to me on my birthday.

This gift was one of the most thoughtful things another human has done for me. I’m not ashamed to admit it made me tear up a little. I still have the book on my bookshelf. I will treasure it until the day that I return to the earth. 

Security Policy & Awareness

For the last two years, I have been on a journey, learning to influence behaviour by writing principle-based policies. I control over fifty documents and improve the writing and effectiveness each time something changes. Each iteration improves the documents and gives clear, positive, respectful messages. I’m still learning the craft. I think I will be until I retire. I enjoy writing a good policy and have much knowledge and experience to share. That led me to start PolicyWizard. 

Masterclass

After completing the Security Policy Foundations course, I began working on the content for the Security Policy Masterclass. I sat at the computer late at night, just like I’m doing now, and compiled sixty-eight pages of content. I was trying to formulate a book to go along with the course. I was going about it wrong. It never quite felt right. I wasn’t passionate about it. I love the content and teaching, but it didn’t feel right. I paused that effort. I will return to it soon, but it will be in a different format. 

My new book

I will keep the book a secret as the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) has yet to be confirmed. This book will not be theoretical. It will be story-based, bringing the policy writing discipline to life through words and magic.

As inspiration, I created the front cover of the book. It was super easy using Canva. I was not expecting to make something good. I hoped for something I could look at when I didn’t feel like sitting at the desk for a few hours. Something to make me want to do the hard work.

Little did I know I would produce something that could sit proudly on any CISO or Security Consultants desk or bookshelf. I’m not sharing that cover until everything is confirmed and registered. That day will not be too far in the distance.

Coaching Flash Sale

Here is a coupon code for 30% off the £97 fee for a 1:1 sixty-minute session with me. A few spaces are available next Saturday, but you can book anytime in the next year if you buy. Click the link, and it will auto-apply the discount for you.

Here is what Alana had to say about our session:

Until the next adventure!

Stuart Wedge 🧙‍♂️

PolicyWizard