Hey everyone,
Sometimes, a day just comes along and slaps you upside the head. You wake up disoriented, wondering where you are, what day, time, or century it is.
I had one of those days last week.
I was jetlagged. I was also on a (self-imposed) deadline. I should have just slept, but I didn’t. Then, I couldn’t.
First, I went 24 hours without sleep. Then, another 24. By the time the third day rolled around, I could barely speak.
I’ve had this sort of day before. To tell you the truth, I’ve had this sort of decade before. I remember it well from my twenties. You feel as though you’re a zombie, walking around in a haze so thick you can barely see two steps ahead of yourself. Your eyes see clearly but your brain is so fuzzy, you barely register anything. What’s worse, because you know you can’t trust who you are, what you’re seeing, and how you’re feeling, you isolate yourself so much that no one even knows, let alone is able to offer help.
I spent years like this, through my twenties, and I still can’t tell you how I managed to function, let alone build a successful writing career. I was just that stubborn, I guess.
These days, I have a husband and a child. A man who forces me into bed and brings me endless cups of tea and a little boy who wakes me up with a loving, “Mummy, can I get you anything?” There’s less chance of me falling through the cracks now because there’s always a hand holding on to me, pulling me out.
I missed two days. I was going to type “I missed two days of writing,” but in actual fact, I missed two days of everything—work, my own life, my child’s life. And then, I woke up at 4 in the morning, having slept a full 16 hours and I didn’t feel quite so fragile anymore.
Maybe I shouldn’t talk about this.
But maybe I should.
Because you know, I built a career anyway. I succeeded anyway. I got to a six-figure income anyway.
I was stubborn and committed, yes. I was ambitious, yes. I had a deep desire, a fire that burned bright to prove myself, yes. I wasn’t going to stop until I got to where I wanted to be, for sure, and I was always willing to do what it took, as long as it took.
But given how I was feeling much of the time, I wasn’t putting in full-time hours.
In fact, looking back over my career, until recently, I’ve never been able to work full-time hours. I’ve been a full-time writer and I’ve worked every hour that I physically could, but my mental health never really allowed me to work long hours or sane hours. I couldn’t do on-camera interviews because I wasn’t sure when I would have been going days without sleep, and I did, at the peak of my career, turn down repeated invitations to appear on international television networks to talk about the hot-button issues of the day.
Still, despite the opportunities I missed, there were others that I did take advantage of. And I was able to because while many other journalists and writers had the option of networking and building their public profiles, and becoming go-to interview sources, I did something else:
I got incredibly good at the basics.
I learned how to spot a good story. I learned how to pitch it incredibly well. And I learned how to report and write in a way that editors always came back to me for more.
I can’t tell you how many editors have told me that my pitches were the best they’d ever seen.
“You should teach people how to do this,” one top editor once told me.
And I do. It’s why I run this website, why I teach my courses, why I care about helping writers as much as I do. I help you get good at the basics, something that will serve you not just now, but for the rest of your career.
I want you to know that there’s someone out there, someone behind this keyboard who knows exactly what you’re going through. I’m here so you know that there’s someone who won’t let you fall through the cracks. You, like me, may miss many opportunities. But there are so many more out there waiting for you.
Let’s make them happen for you.
Cheers,
Natasha