Category: Newsletter

This week I celebrated my last birthday in my fifties. Rather than feeling old, dejected, and “under-the-age”, I felt as if I am back in my teen years.

Once again I am exploring myself. Who am I? What do I want to do? What can I learn? What can I give back to the universe?

Once again I am seeing the world around me with fresh eyes. I am finding the world is not as frightening and enigmatic as used to be in my teen years and all through the twenties and thirties when I was struggling. It is magnificent and diverse. It has so much to offer no matter at what level you are and which place you come from. You just need to open your arms to receive.

Once again I have a child-like fascination towards life and the gifts it has to
offer. I am discovering new passions literary each day. Each morning I can’t
wait to get out of the bed to try new things.

All this time my children and my nephews and nieces are hailing me. Encouraging me to keep going. To keep trying. Keep discovering. They are taking the role of my parents who used to boast my childhood successes. It feels so good to explore new talents in me. The fire is on. The passion unbound.

If there is one insight I can give to those who feel trapped in jobs or life, as I used to just a couple of years ago, just hang on to your dream. One day you too will make your dream a reality.

This week I wrote four articles. They are small and easy reads full of actionable advice.

The final solution to the perpetual loop of “to be, or not to be.”

A simple repeatable system to write

Sprint Writing

Get that monkey off your back

I am reading The Lightkeeper’s Wife, a novel by a Canberra author Karen Viggers. A gripping story, beautifully written. I am reading it slowly, savoring every bit of it. But the problem is that the book belongs to the public library and is due back this week. I can’t even renew it because eleven people have reserved it after me. I could have easily finished the book in four weeks had it not for the countless other distractions.

This week I came to the realisation that I am doing everything else except what I want to do. I am reading everything else except what I want to read. I am writing everything else except what I want to write.

Neil Gaiman writes in Make Good Art:

“There was a day when I looked up and realised that I had become someone who professionally replied to an email, and who wrote as a hobby. I started answering fewer emails, and was relieved to find I was writing much more.”

I can either be on top of social media or read good books. I can either write long well-researched articles or finish my novel. I can’t do both, that is for sure. For a long time, I foolishly believed that I was that superwoman who can do both. But my energy doesn’t come from kryptonite. I am a mere mortal whose eyes get extremely tired after a few hours on the computer. I need to make sure I invest those hours wisely into things that matter most.

We writers need to protect our writing time fiercely. Unless we are living alone in country property, we will struggle to find time to write.

On Monday, I spent two hours editing the first five chapters of the non-fiction book I am writing. It felt terrific. I set myself a goal of finishing the edit by Friday and sending it to a professional editor and proofreader. I am on target to do that.

Also, this week I spent “15 Radical Minutes” with another Medium writer, Matt Inman. It is great to know other writers and what is driving them. I have invited two other authors and waiting for their response.

His week, I managed to write two articles – How new writers should use Quora, and Goal Setting With WOOP. I also managed to published Three Principles of Personal Storytelling in Medium. I have been invited by two more magazines in Medium to write for them.

That is it from me this week folks.

I will write to you again next Friday.

Until then take care.

Hi Friends,

Today I have something personal to share with you.

Last month I avoided a near burnout. I didn’t think burnout can happen to me. I am not going to work, don’t have young children to look after, isn’t providing care to sick parents. Most of my time is my own and I am doing things I love to do. How could I burnout?

But I was wrong.

So were many other people whose candid accounts I read when I started researching the subject.

Luckily I paid attention to early signs and rather than getting consumed by it and letting it cause long term damage I put strategies in place.

We have all been working from lockdown situations for months now. There haven’t been many breaks and people are working longer hours from confined spaces. No holidays are in sight. That can cause burnout.

I am a big fan of routines. Routines get the work done. But routines itself can cause burnout.

If you haven’t experienced burnout before, it can destroy you big time. It is pretty scary in itself.

I have written a long and well-researched article Burnout Is A Real Deal, Watch Out For It. I urge you to read it to know what it can do to you, what are the warning signs and what strategies to put in place to cope with it.

Now on the good news side of things.

Last week I told you about an interesting conversation I had with a Medium writer Cody McGraw. He wrote a post about our conversation too. Have a read of it here: Writing Process | Supporting Fellow Writers.

Kal who runs a blog Kulture Kween about food and culture interviewed me. We talked about food, festivals, and writing. Have a read of it here: Neera Mahajan The Inspiring Indian Australian Story Teller.

This week I submitted two chapters of my novel for critique to the novel-writing group I am a member of since 2015. Thankfully, it took me back into the novel. I am planning to spend one hour a day on the book.

One of the biggest reasons we struggle to finish their novels is we write sporadically. We write for a few days and then we leave for a while and then get back into it when we get time. Getting in and out of a book kills it. We lose touch with the characters and their world. I am hoping my strategy to stay in the world of my characters at least an hour a day will work and help get the first draft done by the end of the year.

How are you enjoying my sketches by the way? I decided to use them in the newsletter instead of the stock pictures. I am getting better with them, am I not?

That is it from me this week folks.

I will write to you again next Friday.

Until then take care.

Hi Friends,

It is taking me time to get used to writing this email on Mail Chimp. Those of you who don’t know, Mail Chimp is an email marketing service that small businesses and bloggers like myself use to write to their subscribers. I had been postponing using MailChimp dreading to learn yet another software but finally gathered enough courage and launched into it. Longer I leave it, the more I feel intimidated by technology. So bear with me if things feel a bit out of place.

Speaking of technology, did you know that podcasts are the next big thing?

First Google launched a podcast app for Android phones. It’s called Google Podcasts and you should download it if you haven’t. Next, according to The Hotsheet, and Amazon is also getting into podcasts. I also read somewhere that the next generation of cars will have podcast apps built in the dashboards. That is entertainment and learning blended in one. If you haven’t started listening to podcasts yet, it is time you start. Leaving it too long will mean living in the eighties without watching TV.

If that is not enough to shock you, here is another technology shocker. A college student used GPT-3 to write fake blog posts and ended up at the top of Hacker News. GPT-3 is a language-generating Artificial Intelligence tool that looks for patterns in data. Liam Porr was trying to demonstrate that the content produced by GPT-3 could fool people into believing it was written by a human. He told MIT Technology Review, “it was super easy, actually, which was the scary part.”

Here’s a sample from Porr’s blog post (with a pseudonymous author), titled “Feeling unproductive? Maybe you should stop overthinking.” A reader to the AI post wrote, “Reads exactly like 99% of the bullshit you find on Hacker News and Medium – well done!”

Where does it leave bloggers like us? We will have to think of ways to beat the machines.

This leads me to an interesting conversation I had with a Medium writer Cody Mcgraw whose article 15 Radical Minutes caught my eye. Cody has been spending 15 virtual minutes with people he had never met before and having “beautifully unique conversations” with them (his words). I wrote a note in his article saying I like this idea and he invited me to have a conversation with him. We hooked on Goggle Meet yesterday and in fifteen minutes I get to know a guy who was young, amazing, interesting, and a great listener. And as they say, it might be the beginning of a long friendship.

This week I submitted the synopsis of my novel to the workshop I am doing with the Australian Writers Centre. It got great reviews. I am feeling energized to get back into it. I was about to dump the damn thing but apparently, the story wants to be born. You will find me talking about it from time to time. 

I started several reports this week, which I want to develop into free resources to be made available on my website. They will keep me busy for months to come.

That is it from me this week.

I will write to you again next Friday.

Until then take care.

Regards
Neera

Dear Readers,

First of all, I want to thank you for subscribing to my blog and staying with me while I found my feet in the wide world of the internet.

For the past two years, you have been receiving two articles from me each week. Although I draw a lot of pleasure from researching and writing them, I am finding that it is restricting me from working on other projects. I have a novel, a non-fiction book, and a number of courses underway. Their time has come.

Which means I need to make time for them in my daily schedule. 

Remember my article Three Types Of Newsletter To Stay Connected With Your Readers? In that article, I described three types of newsletters writers can use to stay connected with their readers. 

1. “Editorial” or “Feature Article” style
2. “Link” style
3. Blog style

So far you have been receiving an “Editorial” or a “Feature Article” style newsletter from me.

It is best suited to educate readers and impart knowledge and experience in a regular way. As I am getting more and more into the nitty-gritty of writing, publishing, and marketing, I am observing that not all my articles interest all my readers.

Also being in the teaching mode doesn’t allow me to connect to you in the real sense. There are many things each week, other than the articles, which I want to share with you.

That is why I am moving from the “Feature Article” style newsletter to the blog style newsletter. Just like the one you are reading. 

But don’t worry I will still be writing articles.

I will be writing them and publishing them regularly on my website and letting you know about them in my weekly newsletter. You will receive one email from me, each Friday, to let you know what I have written to help you with your journey and to let you know about my journey.

Because, more than anything else, we writers learn from each other.

By sharing our progress and processes we inspire and motivate each other. And also keep ourselves accountable. Writing is a solitary activity. Without my readers, and their encouragement, I will get lost in my struggles and perhaps will have nothing to show for all the effort I put into my projects.

I need you, just like you need to know what I am learning from my experiences. 

This style of communication will suit us both. 

Over time I will improve the layout of this email so that it becomes more useful and familiar.

But for the time being, let the above cartoon mark the new beginning.

Keep writing.

Regards
Neera

PS: You can let me know what you think of this format by simply replying to this email.