Hello April! And Happy Weekend☀️
Some updates and a lot of good vibes.
Hello dear friend
Welcome to a brand new edition of Be Your Best Friend with Anangsha - the weekend newsletter that religiously believes in the power of monthly reviews.
It’s April, and the first quarter of 2022 is already over.
How were things for you? Do leave a reply and let me know.
March for me was every bit awkward. I ended February on a high - with a hugely successful conference for Infosec Writeups and the super amazing launch of my first info product.
At the beginning of March, I felt a lull.
After the insane excitement of the past month, just doing “regular” things felt boring. I slowly did manage to settle on a rhythm, and here are a few highlights of the month that went by:
I started car driving lessons (yes, I know I’m old, but it’s never too late to start, right?) and got my Learner’s License. I did it all by myself in a Government office where I don’t speak the local language. The experience made me feel like a proper adult.
I wrote 2 high-quality articles for my freelance client. The response was amazing, both in terms of audience feedback and the kind words from my client.
I went to a writer club meet-up for the first time in my life where we had to write a story or a poem from the point of view of an inanimate object. I picked a mirror as my protagonist. It was an amazing experience letting my creativity flow freely without any restrictions or thoughts about monetizing it.
I socialized a lot. I made some new friends in this new city. Most of this month was spent enjoying new experiences like playing cricket, learning to bowl really well, weekend brunches, long drives, homemade chicken biryani sessions, and movie dates.
I also applied for the LinkedIn Creator Accelerator Program - a form they claimed would take me 20 minutes, but actually took me over 3 hours. The results will be out in May, but I have some really good vibes about it. Keeping my fingers crossed.
I published 12 articles on Medium, wrote every day on Twitter and LinkedIn, and am super close to breaching the 50k follower count on Medium.
Work-wise, March wasn’t too bad. But I had a lot of fun.
When I look back on 2022, I think some of the highlights would definitely reside in March.
Oh, and I also got a new phone. Here’s the first selfie I clicked with it:
I would love to know how the past month went for you. Do write to me with the highlights or any important lessons you learned.
Some interesting things I created
In case you missed out, here are the most interesting pieces of content I created in March:
3 Powerful Women-Led Books The World Needs to Read in 2022: Underrated fiction reads that aren’t talked about enough (5-min read)
Pursuing Your Passion Takes More Resilience Than I Imagined: Life as a full-time creator is not all sunshine and rainbows as I’d hoped (4-min read)
How Being a *Workaholic* Has Made My Life Better: What does work-life balance mean when work is your life? (5-min read)
I also started a new 3-part series on YouTube called Freelance on the Side. In it, I discuss all the ways a person with some talent for writing can start a successful freelance writing career on the side without quitting their job. Here are the three episodes of the series:
4 Ways Freelance Writing Can Change Your Life (~8 min watch)
The 4 FAILED & 1 Successful Ways I Tried to Become A Full-Time Writer (~12 min watch)
4 Burning Questions about Freelance Writing ANSWERED (~7 min watch)
I also talked about the 5 most-used and FREE tools that helped me stay super productive as a freelancer. You can check the video here:
Some good news for writers
In March 2022, I launched a new newsletter called The Write Way with two super successful Indian writers, Neeramitra Reddy and Shivendra Misra.
We send out weekly emails about the most important writing-related lessons we learned and how you can apply them. We also host a weekly AMA on Twitter Spaces (our first AMA was amazing. 65 people attended it and it went on for more than 1 hour. You can catch a replay here).
Currently, we have a 50% off discount for the first 50 subscribers, so check out the deal if this sounds like something you might benefit from.
Note that I create this newsletter for you every week with lots of love. If you’d like to support me, here’s a link to buy me a book.
If you found this letter useful, don’t forget to forward this to a friend or ask them to sign up for my newsletter. It’s free, and you know me, I only send valuable content.
That’s all from my end today. I’ll see you again soon. Till then, stay strong. Keep smiling and be awesome.
With love,
Anangsha.
Keep up the good work :)