Let's put it into words.

Is it daunting? Yes. Nerve-wracking? That, too. Does it feel like the right thing? Yes!

When I left my wonderful marketing job of eight years to go on a family slash writing sabbatical, it coincided with what is now know as the Great Resignation, i.e. the universal trend to go solo after the pandemic loosened its grip on the globe. In me, the decision had been brewing for some time, but many factors (read: mostly financial) had to fall into place. Freelance writing as a career meant waving a goodbye to regular pay checks and instead embrace the unknown. It meant saving in advance and changing our family life to adjust to a new financial reality. It meant trusting in myself as a writer, even though that burning desire to write was all I had to show for it in the very beginning.

At first, I took months off, moving our family out of Copenhagen and homeschooling our girls in the wake of Corona. Slow was my new mantra. Then, the desire to write more started to roar and I began carving out time to write fiction and essays, challenging myself to better a story, to add depth to the characters, to edit just one one more time. I took a course, I found freelance writing buddies. One morning, when checking my email feed on my phone, I learned that I’d published my first fictional short story. I leapt out of bed, heart pounding from excitement, to share the news with my husband and daughters. This, I thought to myself later that day, was why I’d done it. This was why I’d jumped into the unknown, leaving pension plans and pay rises and colleagues and travel and lunches out behind. I’d done it for the joy of it, and for the feeling of aliveness that came with doing what I love best: writing.

Several published stories, essays and poems later, I’ve come to the point where I’m merging my decade-long marketing experience with my love of writing. This step, too, is exciting. It’s a blank page, just like this blog, and it’s the beginning of something new and unknown. For as long as I’ve been in marketing, I’ve gravitated towards content creation. Since I started learning the marketing ropes in London in the late noughties, much has happened. I’ve witnessed the birth of Twitter, creating the first user account for the company I worked for back then. I’ve written a global social media plan back when no one knew what would become of it, let alone if it was worth the time of day. I’ve worked on whitepapers, started blogs, learned SEO, and I’ve watched the content field climb from side-strategy to most-important.

Now is an exciting time to be writing stories. Everyone wants to know what’s behind a brand. We all seek connection, and at the speed information is currently coming at us, we’re all trying to cut to the chase as quickly as possible to find that honest, thought-provoking or inspiring story that resonates with us. That we know in our bones ring true. Otherwise, we’re not interested and we move on. Great content takes some time and it definitely takes dedication, but it doesn’t need to cost the earth. The best story is one that shows real human experience – challenges, setbacks, hurdles and all. Tone-of-voice can be tweaked to fit the brand, but the underlying message should come from the heart. And – of course – be a joy to write.

On that note, it’s time for me to go back to the blank page, back to creating, back to writing stories, and back to discovering great ones that I are already out there, waiting for the right time to come out of their hiding place so they can inspire someone else.