Bring me fruit, flowers and small electrical appliances because Advice I Needed Yesterday is turning four!
Can you believe it? It seems like just yesterday that I was walking around New York City, spilling soup in my handbag and snatching up domain names. Now here we are, 250 posts and several hundred thousand views later.
Someone buy me a toaster. I deserve it.
Like many major life events, launching this blog didn’t seem significant at the time. To be fair, stories about soup rarely do. But there is an exception to every rule and this time, I’m it. What started as a side hustle ended up being a game changer, though no one knew that at the time.
I started this blog as a place to chronicle the mundane with humor and style. To laugh at life’s little twists and turns. To hone my writing skills while I figured out if it was possible to make a new career out of something I enjoyed doing.
Of course, I had fantasies of “being discovered” or going viral overnight. Like many bloggers, I dreamt of book deals and bylines. I secretly hoped that writing would be my ticket out of the life I had outgrown. But even with all that wishful thinking, my expectations were relatively low when I made my debut. After all, who really cares about the point of view of a 30-something woman in Manhattan? Who wants to read about the time I got lost in Quito or set a bar on fire in Dublin? Who cares about my opinions on catcalling or extendable dog leashes?
Turns out, no one. For the first few months I received only one or two visitors per day. I had few comments. Little traction. No followers. Still, I kept posting. About home renovations that no one asked me to do and lessons I learned while upside down and bad Tinder dates. Writing was something I enjoyed doing and that seemed like reason enough keep to doing it.
What I didn’t realize when I started this blog was that I was taking a step towards living on my own terms. The day I launched this site was the day I decided, officially, that I was going to be a writer. Since there was no such job available, I made one up. I figured I’d do this until I had the chance to do the real thing.
The funny thing about believing yourself to be something is that a lot of people are willing to take your word for it. A few months after I launched this blog, a marketing magazine would ask me to contribute a guest post to their site. That guest post led to a job offer a few months later. Not long after I got hired, I got the chance change careers and work remotely as a writer. I used my newfound freedom to travel through 52 countries over three years. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I met my partner at a bar in Helsinki.
When I started this blog, I never thought any of that would happen. Never in a million years did I expect a little can of soup to kick off such a chain of events and jumpstart a life that seemed all but impossible just a four years ago. Never could I have even imagined it. Never could I have dreamt it. I can hardly believe it still and I’m actually living it.
Now that I know how the story turns out, I’m so glad I followed through on my little idea – even though my life was so very basic at the time; even though hardly anyone was reading in the beginning; even though it didn’t seem like anything would ever come of it. I’m so glad that I didn’t talk myself out of starting this project because I couldn’t justify the time and money it would take to pursue it.
So often, especially as adults, when it comes to hobbies and interests we ask ourselves if it’s “worth it.” The practical side of us wants to know if there will be a return on our investment. We convince ourselves that there has to be a reason, a good reason, to do things. Enjoying them should be reason enough, but it rarely is.
I look back and shudder to think what would have happened if I didn’t start this blog. I wonder where I’d be today if I decided that instead of pursuing a hobby I should do something useful instead, like clean my apartment or prepare my tax return. Who else would be a little disappointed if I walked away from the idea because I thought of a better way to spend 3 hours and $30 than on this URL?
If Advice I Needed Yesterday could give everyone a blog-iversary present it would be a pep talk. And it goes something like this: Never talk yourself out of having big ideas. Continue investing in the life that you want. Don’t diminish your own talents, don’t dial back your goals, don’t compromise on your vision. Don’t get discouraged when it doesn’t happen all at once. Instead, look back on the past year or two or four and see how far you’ve come. That’s the only way to tell how far you will go.
From the first followers to the newest friends, thank you all for joining me on this amazing journey. I hope you enjoyed these years even half as much as I did. Here’s to many more filled with flowers and fruit, adventure and success, ambition and joy.
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Happy, happy anniversary! You are one fierce woman. Looking forward to more and more.-Sam
THANK YOU!! You were my very first reader and my biggest supporter and I appreciate that so much! Love you to bits! xx
Happy Anniversary! Thank you so much for your entertaining stories. Also, thanks for the inspiration I needed to help me start writing.
Cheers to many more anniversaries and fantastic opportunities!!!
Start today and we can share an anniversary!!
Happy Happy Anniversary! I start my new path today. Thanks in part to your example and advice!
YESS!! We, too, will share an anniversary! Good luck to you, whatever it is you’re doing!
Congratulations! My blog is over ten years old now and it’s never led me anywhere, but I’ve never regretted the time spent on it. If anything, I wish I could go back and write more in the first few years, when it was barely alive, because I love being able to look back over my own story.
Well… I’ve been following your blog and I have to say, I disagree. You have been ALL OVER. Maybe not *for* your blog, but *with* your blog. And that’s not nothing! May you have 10 more years of even more adventure! xx
Big heartfelt congratulations!!!! Happy 4👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼🌸🤘🏼🌟
I’m so happy for you lady.
Thank you! Big congratulations to you too! I’m excited for both of us!
I happened on your blog thru Jenny Lawsons blog and am so glad I did. I was tired of reading the papers/news and wanted to read so much more. You gave me that so much more and I Thank You!
I’m so glad you did too! Thank you for reading and following along! :) Here’s to so much more, yet to come!
Happy anniversary! As an independent lady doing life her own way myself I love following the adventures of a kindred spirit. May the next four bring even more fun and funny for us all to enjoy! Congrats :)
Amen! Doing life your way is the only way to do it!! thanks for following along… best of luck to you in your adventures too!
Happy Blog-iversary! I’m fairly new to your blog and I enjoy it so much. Thank you for sharing part of your life with us!
Thank you for following! :)
Congratulations on your blogiversary! I needed to read this today :)
I’m glad. :) Thank you for reading!!
I think this is the best entry you have ever written. I have secret fantasies of becoming a writer some day but sadly, I have not acted on them for the exact reasons you mentioned. I’m an adult, a single parent, I have to be realistic, blah blah blah. Thanks for the encouragement to dream big and act on our dreams. Maybe one day soon… I love your blog. I look forward to it every week. So happy for you for all that it has brought you!
Yes, but Dale, have you seen my post on soup??? I kid. Thank you! That’s high praise.
I get the struggle to be practical especially if you have people depending on you, but I also think our “secret fantasies” deserve some air time. I hope you make yours a priority just as soon as possible.
Thanks for reading! xx
Dale, consider this: I read once about a Japanese woman who worked in a factory. She was given a half hour bathroom break, once a day.
In that half hour she would sit and write and write until she had finished a complete page. Someone said, ‘why bother? Why waste your time?” and she answered, “in a year I will have written 365 pages, enough for a complete book.” and it was, and she did.
I am envious of the people who can pick up and drop off with writing, an hour here or there. I find I need time to get into the right headspace… if I am interrupted, I need to get into it all over again. I was like this when I worked in an office too… the open floor plan was the bane of my existence as my concentration always broke. Anyway – good for her.
I’ve also heard of the strategy of either writing 500 words or doing 1500 words of editing, 5x a week. Just a “get it done” every day approach. Even with all the flexibility in my schedule, I find it hard to make that work. I write less often, but more words…
Anyway – I guess it doesn’t really matter what works for others. Just finding what works for you. I’m still looking.
I couldn’t agree more with everything you said, I feel the same way about my own blog.
Congratulations on 4 years, and I’m so happy that you enjoy writing your blog so much! I sure enjoy reading it. Here’s to at least 4 more!
Ha – I know you get it. You and I are soul sisters. Congratulations to you as well. If anyone in this world is living on her own terms, it’s you!
I’m so happy you started Nova. I have enjoyed your posts so much, and have had the courage to travel myself by reading about yours. Keep on writing for me. I look forward to reading about your adventures.
Thank you! I’m happy I started too… and even happier to hear that you tried solo traveling yourself. I plan to keep it up – and I hope you do too, so long as it makes you happy. xx
Mega-congratulations! I’m definitely glad you started writing. And I hope the next 40 years of your life are as fascinating as the last 4 have been.
Thank you! I have no idea where life will end up taking me, but if I have 40 years left in me, I plan to use them to the fullest. Thanks for reading… and hope our paths cross at some point in the coming decades. xx
congratulations, Nova. I’ve been traveling with you (albeit voyeuristically) since your hanging-by-scarves-from-the-wall days, and enjoying every minute.
It’s been quite a trip, hasn’t it, and I can hardly wait for the next adventure.
get out! I didn’t realise you were around from the get go. I know it was a long time, but I didn’t think it was so early on! thanks for reading and commenting so frequently… I appreciate the acknowledgement that someone is out there :) xx
Well I’m only a year into blogging but I can already see this is going to be a long term thing, even if it stays “small” because the readers I do have are so loyal. I am a “few” years older than you (read: 10) and I thought, “Who starts a writing career in their mid-forties?” But it has been rewarding, even at this level, and finding others with my warped sense of humor has been priceless!
Good for you. You start when you start, that’s what I think.
I feel like a lot of people have this mindset of “Oh I’m too old for that…” But I feel the opposite. I felt like my life just got started in my 30s. (My 20s were just a blur of working non-stop). I think one of the good things of living in New York was that I met people of all ages who were doing whatever they wanted… I once wrote about the 60 year old woman who was in my aerial class (with her 20-soemthing daughter, mind you). Or the people just getting serious about a career at 40. Or the men I met who were reentering the dating field at 45. It was a good eye-opener that there is still lots of life to lie regardless of your age. In that city, no one should ever feel old… and I really appreciated that about it. I know I can go back at any point and pick back up with whatever I want.
In any case, I’m glad you started blogging and enjoy it. The community we build as writers is the best part. Glad to have met you!
I’m so proud of and happy for you!!
thank you!!! xx
Life would be less rich if your blog wasn’t in it. I sometimes save posts for when I’ll need a pick me up. Even when the content doesn’t make me laugh (rare), it’s a please to read and learn