Issue #156

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May 2, 2024

IN TODAY’S ISSUE:

• Don’t forget to thank your editors

• The 5-step process I used to thrive after burnout

• How to keep your first draft fast and fun

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

Hi again, writer friends,

 

Well, it happened again. After months of excellent sleep and a regular schedule, the insomnia kicked in last night. I listened to a sleep meditation four times before I finally turned it off and put on an audiobook instead.

The last time this happened was in January, after a nine-hour flight to India. I love to travel, but the journey itself is almost always difficult for me. I went a full 48 hours without sleep and by the time I arrived back in London, I was buzzing. Sadly, not in the good way. It took me weeks to get back to normal. Hope it’s a bit faster this time!

 

Oh, an update from the editor situation from last week. My editor wrote back, apologized for the delay, and said she wanted to put a rush fee in my contract so that I can be compensated fairly for any last-minute assignments. I refrained from singing, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” though I did tell her that this is exactly why she’s my favorite editor.

 

See, it does work to ask for what you want.

 

I’ve been very lucky with editors in my life. At the beginning of my career my editor at Elle paid me for stories in advance because she knew I was struggling both personally and financially and didn’t want money to be the reason I got held back professionally. My reporting on Indian women won a bunch of prestigious awards, and it was that editor who made me believe that the work I was doing was important and that it was my responsibility to find and tell those stories.

 

A lot of people will say it. This editor was keeping my bills paid while I traveled across the country to pursue random instincts and vague ideas, many of which didn’t pan out. I don’t think I would have survived that dark time without her.

 

My editor at GlobalPost sent me a bunch of commissions the week after I returned from maternity leave and paid me well before the stories were approved so I wouldn’t have to stress about invoices while looking after a baby.

 

My editor at an engineering publication told a room full of hundreds of journalists that I was among the handful of writers he’d ever encountered who could take an incredibly dry and complicated subject like construction or plumbing and not only simplify it, but humanize the people who worked in it. This landed me several new clients.

 

And I’m still tickled by the fact that an editor at Time magazine who lectured at an ivy league university often used my climate reporting as an example of how to do it well. (I found out because his students emailed me!)

 

Needless to say, I owe my career to the excellent editors in my life, including my husband, Sam, who is one of the sharpest journalists I’ve ever worked with.

 

So this is a reminder to thank your editors today and tell them what a fantastic job they’re doing. We get the credits and the bylines, but often, it’s their keen eye and sharp insight that prevents us from looking like fools in print.

 

Enjoy the issue!

Natasha Khullar Relph
Editor, The Wordling

HOW I FIXED MY BROKEN WRITING CAREER

At the end of 2021, I burned out. The truth is, I’d been in survival mode for pretty much my entire life, and my body had finally had enough and could no longer keep up.

 

Much like the many multipassionate writers I know, I’d been doing too many things with the expectation that all of them succeed massively and immediately.

 

I wanted to make $10k a month freelancing, so I pitched and found the clients and built up the recurring income. I wanted to write bestsellers, so I finished the novel, wrote the nonfiction book proposal, found two top literary agents (one in the UK, one in the US), and put the books out on submission. I wanted to help writers, so I started an exclusive membership for authors offering personal 1:1 coaching, infinite resources, and my eyes on their work.

 

I wanted to travel. Spend time with my kid. Focus on my husband. Stay in touch with friends. Invest in my future. Create fun memories.

 

I wanted to do it all. None of it was negotiable. And everything had to be done perfectly. And preferably today.

 

If that sounds overwhelming and unsustainable, that’s because it was.

 

I would not listen to anyone who told me to focus, though. Richard Branson doesn’t focus, I would have said. He builds multiple businesses and look how far he’s gotten. Are you telling me you know how to run a business better than Richard Branson?

 

I wasn’t wrong. But I understand now that there’s a difference between doing multiple things and doing multiple things at once.

 

That’s the key mistake I was making.

 

And all the stress and overwhelm was causing me to hate my life, hate my writing, and sabotage any opportunities that came my way.

 

It took me a while, but I took everything off my plate and started from scratch. I asked myself, “If a student or coaching client came to me and said they were multipassionate but completely burned out, what advice would I give? How would I help them solve it? What steps would I put in place that were small but actionable?”

 

So I wrote down those steps. And then I followed them.

 

I outline the entire process in detail in this free training I recorded, but basically, here’s what I did: 

 

Step #1: I built up a sustainable and dependable source of income

For me, this was freelancing. I don’t always enjoy freelancing, especially the non-journalism part of it, but finding high-paying clients is something I’ve been doing for decades. I’m excellent at it. I was very clear about the kind of work I would accept however. I only signed on with a client if they could guarantee $2,500 of work each month or offer a one-time project with a $4,000 minimum. Within weeks, I landed an SEO client through a referral, an ongoing gig with The CS Monitor, and a $5k project with Success.

 

Step #2: I cut my hours by half

Once I had the income I wanted, I focused on time. How could I earn the same amount of money in half the time? I called this Project One Big Holiday, the intention being to get my life to a point where it all feels like one big holiday. I got rid of my addiction to toxic deadlines, I started waking up earlier and getting my work done before noon, I focused on creating processes in my writing and business, and I learned about batching and context switching. I also started letting go of clients that were hard work and replacing them with long-term clients that were easy to work with, even if they couldn’t guarantee a monthly minimum.

 

Step #3: I added a passive income stream

Now, with half my time freed up, I could add another income stream. I had two choices in this step: books or Wordling Plus. Initially, I chose books. However, I quickly realized that this was a mistake because I don’t really want to publish a novel until I have at least 100,000 people in my audience. I’m not interested in publishing a novel just to say I did it. I want books to become a full-time income stream, especially as an indie. So while I did end up writing my next novel, I quickly changed my focus to Wordling Plus. When you’re setting things up, you need easy wins. This was mine.

 

Step #4: Automate and outsource

This is the step I’m in now. I don’t think anyone, including writers, can achieve true financial freedom until they have this part down and my focus this year has been learning how to automate sales. I want to know that if I’ve created something—a book, a course, a membership—it continues to sell without constant hustle on my part. I love creating and I love selling, but I want to be assured that when I do either of those things, they’re having a long-term and not one-time impact.

 

If you’re a multipassionate writer, you have a variety of writing dreams that you want to accomplish. Unfortunately, most struggling writers make the costly mistake of focusing on all those things at once. Without achieving mastery in one area first, you’ll waste months of time creating things that you either can’t sell or can’t sell for large sums.

 

That’s why I’ve created this incredible training that shows you how to identify your strengths and areas of focus so you can leverage the mastery you’ve achieved in one area to get to your next goal even faster. Without the confidence and excellence in freelancing, none of my next steps would have been possible.

 

If you’re building multiple streams of income as a writer, this training will show you the mistakes to avoid and, as a bonus, you’ll chart a clear course to a six-figure income within the next year. It’s a proven process that works. Watch it here.

RESOURCES FOR YOUR WRITING CAREER:

Share today’s newsletter with an ambitious writer who could use the reminder to focus on mastering one skill at a time.