2021: a Year in Review

I never wrote a 2020 year end review because I found it bleak and scary. I did not want to visit those dreaded lockdown months of endless wait and uncertainty. Instead, I chose to focus on the most positive outcome of the year and wrote about my KDP publishing experience. When I revisited the piece recently I realised it was pretty in-depth and if you want to know about how to publish your book on KDP and market on the launch day, you can read it here.

When I had decided not to write a review of the year 2020, I could not have known that 2021 would be worse. In fact, the worst year of my life.

The year was full of emotional highs and lows and today I want to take you all down that roller coaster ride.

If you want to reach out for a mug of your favourite hot drink, I am not going to stop you.

When I started writing this post I thought I would write it chronologically, starting from January but then it felt so boring. I decided to highlight the most important events or happenings – personal as well as professional – for the year. 

So get ready to dive straight in.

2020 began on a high note with many financial milestones reached

I bagged two 1L clients in the first two weeks of January. I have had multiple 1L clients over the past couple of years but these projects were single deliverables. So someone was willing to pay me this much to put together a single whitepaper or business document. 

The thing is, after publishing my book in October 2019 (and again failing to earn anything out of it 😄), I decided to focus on client work. More specifically higher paying clients. I went all out on every marketing strategy I knew. Personal networking, LinkedIn outreach, warm pitching (cold pitching is just not for me), paid job boards. The whole hog. 

The result was that I got connected to many digital marketers who were also decision makers in their organization. I got into discussing potential projects over the next couple of months with many of them.

Just because you have the project it doesn’t mean you will finish it too!!

The first one was not something I was very hopeful of because it was a start-up. In fact, they were in the ideation stage and wanted my help in writing a whitepaper describing their product and the need for it. I had multiple rounds of interviews with the founder and with 50% payment in my bank, I started working with great relish. 

Healthtech is something I have written about on and off but never at this scale. I loved the research and outlining. The1st draft went out and I was a bit apprehensive. The review was excellent, suggested edits minimal and I did the second draft accordingly. 

And then the wait for the information to be put in the conclusion section began because even they were figuring it out. But then it never came and the project had to be shelved. The client came back with all kinds of excuses about why I should not be paid the full amount. They were willing to pay me 20% of the outstanding amount but I stuck my ground and chose to forego the payment. Accepting 20% would have been tantamount to accepting my work was worth that much. 

At least now I can crib about the client and weigh 10X before taking up any client still in ideation stages. A valuable lesson learnt, even if an expensive one.

Financial crunch 

March was the month when the delayed payment cycle (from 2020) of my husband‘s business started to hit us. 

Whereas we writers usually have to deal with 45-90 days of payment cycles from publications, his business has to deal with anywhere from 6 to 8 months of payment delays, during which he continues making the payments to the employees working for that client. 

During the pandemic we were good to go because we were getting paid for the projects that had been completed by the end of 2019 or beginning of 2020. It was only during the lockdown that work had been suspended.

Things started to go south from January itself but by the time it was March the situation was dismal. Especially because the work had resumed after September 2020 and we had to start making labour payments. 

All in all, there was full expenditure with near-zero income. A very tight spot to be in if you are running an organisation employing close to 100 people.

I could never hope to chip in with his business expenses but I did start taking on more and more household expenses. Even this was too much for me because I have never had to make so much contribution to the household expenses and I plan my income goals accordingly. 

To be honest, what is the point of freelancing if I cannot devote enough time to my kids and family.

The second wave hits

While we were still struggling with our finances, the second wave of COVID-19 hit India. We started following the News and our inboxes (at the beginning of the first wave I had signed up for Nature, JAMA and MIT Coronavirus newsletters) with renewed terror. Logic dictated that we were as prone to being infected as the other person but there is always a difference between theoretical probability and practical experiences. 

To say the least, we were not prepared for the month of April when news of close family members getting infected by Covid started trickling in. We thought we were prepared for it, but obviously we were not.

Family members that belonged to the previous generation (the senior citizens) as well as those much younger to us got infected and we could do nothing except pray for their quick recovery. 

It reached closer to home

Eventually both my husband and I got infected too. How we endured it is not a story for this post. If you’re interested in reading all the tear-jerking details, here is the post I published recently.

The effect of Covid was such that even after a month I could not sit at my table and write for 10 minutes. I got Rheumatoid Arthritis in my right elbow; I already suffer from RA but till now it had been restricted to my knees. Eventually I had to go for homeopathy medication; thankfully it worked and I could start writing again. Although, it did take almost 6 weeks to reach that level.

The effects of Covid are still visible. My husband can’t taste half the things I cook, my RA has spread to other bones in my body and there is a permanent cough in my chest. 

I know I have no proof that the spread of RA is linked to COVID-19 but can there be any other explanation for the fact that the RA that was restricted to my knees for close to 20 years is suddenly spreading to other bones and that too quite rapidly.

My discipline and self-care has helped me recover as much as I could:

• Before Covid I tried to exercise five times a week but could manage only 2 to 3 days. Now I do not miss it on any of the days. Even while I was travelling last month, I exercised for at least 10 to 15 minutes every morning. My being a morning person helped a lot there.
• Before this, I usually journaled about my professional issues to wrap my head around them but now, I regularly journal about my personal thoughts as well. 
• I do not let anything compromise my reading and writing routine because that is the only thing that keeps me sane. My father used to say, if everyone takes care of themselves, the world would be a much better place to live in. This has now got a new meaning for me.

Hunting for work in the “new normal”

The worst outcome of Covid-19 was that I could not work for close to 3 months. If you remember, I had mentioned that I was going all out on marketing since the end of 2020. January and February 2021 I had lots of high-quality leads and was on the verge of finalizing two projects and at least one more was in the pipeline. 

I had to let go of all those projects because I found it impossible to work, both physically and emotionally.

But then, bills had to be paid and that instigated me to start hunting for work again. I started very slow – pitching to organizations and publications looking for writers.

The second wave had affected everyone personally as well as professionally. I felt reluctant to ask for work. I did make tentative outreaches but it was half hearted at best. And that always shows.

The thing was, when someone did not respond I wondered if they were feeling good or undergoing Covid-related trauma. The social media feed was full of people suffering from the impact of Covid – either they had lost loved ones or feeling traumatic mentally or both.

It felt so selfish to ask for or discuss work at that point of time.

All the marketing systems that I had in place had already crumbled and I didn’t feel up to pulling them back up. 

But as you also know, there are always bills that need to be paid, more so  after a medical emergency. 

So the only thing I resumed fully was pitching on the basis of posts on Patreon. My rationale for doing it was this. These are the people who are looking for writers so it’s best to approach them rather than send a cold or warm email to an unsuspecting person.

I started posting sporadically on LinkedIn as well and I must say that whatever effort I have invested in LinkedIn over the past couple of years paid off. I started getting leads slowly but steadily and things started to look good.

The hour before the sunrise is the darkest

I was reminded of this when I was able to not just land clients but tick off a publication from my bucket list – a byline in Forbes. Yeah, in July I started working as a contributor for Forbes Advisor (imagine me grinning with collars raised up). 

Forbes Advisor project has also taught me how inward remittances work in India! Albeit after many trips to the bank and sleepless nights. 

The worst part about our banking system is that the latest information is not available online easily. When I started searching for rules and regulations of invert remittances, I was redirected to a page 3 years old!! That is something like the stone age in the finance domain.

KBC Junior on-ground audition

The story of this segment starts not in 2020 but 20 years ago, when KBC season 1 started airing on Indian Television. Because since then my husband has been trying to get to the hot seat. That getting into KBC at any level is a matter of luck has been evident time and again but still…

This year my younger daughter – all of nine years when the auditions started – was eligible. And as luck would have it, she cleared the first round and then the second and the third as well. To be honest, we were both surprised and elated. 

Surprised because age-wise she was among the youngest and hence her chances must have been very low. We were proved right in our assumption when the on-ground audition involved just a handful of kids her age. Most of the participants were 13 years or more.

We had to go to Mumbai for the auditions and my daughter was surprised and excited that everybody was doing this for her. So much preparations just for her. 

What I have been able to understand of her psyche is that she feels her elder sister gets all the attention and she must make do with everything second hand. Right from dresses and books to love and attention. Something natural, even if undesirable, between siblings.

Being the younger one in my family I relate to where she is coming from. (Now my brother is going to kick me for this!) And this whole trip planned around her made her understand what we all had been trying to explain to her for years. That she is precious to us for who she is, irrespective of everything else.

Anyways, she did not get selected for the Fastest Finger First but it was a huge learning experience for her. Meeting so many new people, interacting with them, striking friendships, and above all taking decisions on her own. 

I do not want to go into the details of how things were conducted but it was an experience for life time. Especially after the lockdown when kids have forgotten what it was like to interact and enjoy with others.

I was happy to see that she had not lost her touch and struck up friendships with complete strangers easily. This is something I cannot do till this day and I admire it so much in her.

Road trip – finally

I say finally because when we bought our Maruti Suzuki XL6 (a cross between MPV and SUV, according to Financial Express 😜) in September 2019 we planned to go on road trips to every part of India. We started with shorter trips of 9 to 10 hours away but then Covid put a spanner into our plans.

That is why when we had to go to Bhopal to attend a family function in November this year, we chose to go by road. And since we found it foolish to make a to and fro journey on the same route, we decided to take a detour, spend a couple more days on the road and visit some exciting places.

As always, my health tried to play spoilsport. Just a month before our trip the doctor said that my Rheumatoid Arthritis had graduated into Osteoarthritis stage 1 and I must take care of my bone health to preserve it longer. 

But we went ahead with our itinerary. Following a plant-based diet ensured that I had a relatively pain-free trip, but that’s a story for another day.

The wrap up to year 2020

That was November and now we are into the last couple of weeks of the year.

You know that I keep telling my readers to take stock of their goal buckets periodically and what better time than year end to do that.

When I sat down to take stock of my own year 2020, I realised that despite so many highs and lows, I still managed fine with my finances, brought back my health on track as much as possible, mentally I am in a good place and thank God every day that He took care of me and my loved ones when we were in the abyss.

What more could a person want with life?