Essentially, one year of, “You can view more of my work on www.chapteriv.in”
My first reaction? Ahhh, phew!!!
In all my years of growing up and dreaming big, higher-education and fancy corporate designations – never did I once imagine, someday I’d be here. By here, I mean celebrating one year of being in business as a freelance writer.
All of this only makes me further realise that plans can change and more often, for the best.
Life’s come a full circle for me. What started out as an internship with the editorial team at Grazia in my early years, further encouraged me to explore my passion for writing and ended up with me founding Chapter IV: The Brand Boutique.
I have a strong memory from my younger days, wherein my family would ask me to assist them with expressing themselves better in their messages/emails/letters. Happy to report, I still continue to help them navigate that.
What has changed is that now, I do that for a living. Can you imagine how every project feels? Like I’m in candy land, the only difference, it is filled with all the words anyone can ever use and I get to choose the narrative.
Do you know what I believe? I believe that words mean life.
We get to express ourselves magnificently well using these words.
We get to give thanks using these words.
We get to choose our words.
Well, you get the drift and hopefully, now know how I feel about this (or you can get in touch and I can go on and on and on).
This year is made up of a lot of moments, good and bad, scary and exciting, happy and sad – but it was truly my year. My year of figuring it out for myself.
Now, let’s rewind a bit. I was extremely happy at my last corporate job as a Branding & Communications Manager in 2019. The team gave me a platform for guilt-free trial and error and unending support to explore the unknown. (Akshay and Kshamta, if you read this, know that I hold the highest regards for you and for all you have encouraged me to do). Essentially, I was very joyous there. Yet, there was this nagging feeling in my gut that kept urging me to break free.
The last 10 years had been preparing me for that moment and yet, I didn’t see it coming. Sitting in a room with three of my bosses, I heard myself say, “I want to give being an entrepreneur a shot.” The rest as you know is history.
For everyone who knew me, personally and professionally in the last 6 years and asked a few hundred times, “ why aren’t you a full-time writer yet?”
Here’s why – it is because timing is everything and you’ve got to be ready (mentally and professionally) to take on freelancing full-time. This year has been a rollercoaster. Depending on the day, I could be dancing in a cab after a great pitch, panicking because I didn’t have enough work or worrying that I had taken on too much work. Fortunately, my support system is very strong and I always had a sounding board for everything uphill and down.
One year ago, today, I initiated my website to the world. What started as a platform to showcase my portfolio has today, also supported me in launching Barefoot: the blog. With the blog, my endeavour is to bring to you my experiences as a freelancer, bits from my corporate journey and eventually, inputs from others in the industry as well.
As for now, I’ve decided to take on Chapter IV like a one-year-old. With lesser fear and more excitement for the unknown, with more zeal for this opportunity than the worry of lacking stability. The self-employed life has been quite the ride but I am so super overjoyed to take on year two with more experience, patience and skills under my belt.
Stay tuned to know how I celebrated the BIG ONE in the middle of a pandemic and a few other ideas I toyed with.
“I’m lucky because the strongest emotion I have ever felt is love, and that definitely informs my writing.”
– Ben Elton