Tuesday, 7th January 2025

There’s really nothing novel about going offline. It just takes a lot of effort for the average “opens Instagram 50 times a day” kinda gal. Here is a post & video shared by Archita & Shobhit respectively, that remind me of this fact. The first one makes me feel less FOMO & the second gives me ideas on how this can be done sustainably in the long run.

Wednesday, 8th January 2025

I don’t know if it’s the new-year-energy or the social-media sabbatical that’s causing this, but I’ve had some pretty crafty mornings. This morning, I made a “25 in 2025” bingo card of new weekend experiences I want in 2025. I’m reminding myself that this isn’t a “checklist” where I’ll have to do everything, but rather a collection of ideas to pick from when we’re looking for something fun to do.

An exciting news is that I’ll be at the Goa Book Fair this year on 2nd March, doing THREE events – a workshop, a reading & a “book launch” conversation. It’s all pretttyyy big for me 🙂 The organiser asked if I’ll be making social media posts about this. It isn’t anything I need to decide on immediately, but it has definitely brought up some confusion within.

Option A: Just stick with the sabbatical. What’s the worst that can happen if I don’t post about this on Instagram & LinkedIn? For my book launch, I will definitely text everyone I know who might just attend. Other than that, I’m assuming that participation for the workshop & reading will be mostly walk-ins. So does Instagram really play that big a role in this case?

Option B: Not be so rigid with my rules. Just add some posts on Instagram & LinkedIn – what if it reaches some new people. No harm, right? (Except for an unpleasant break in the sabbatical resolution)

Hmmmmmmmm.

In other news: I spent some 30 minutes watching YouTube shorts for entertainment (mostly snippets from a bunch of television series), whereas I could have watched a full long-form video. And I did get sucked into it, and I wish I didn’t. Whenever I open the YouTube app on my phone, I get more recommendations for Shorts than for long-form videos and gosh, Modern Family shorts are the perfect clickbait for me. Damn these addictive UIs!

It’s just been the kind of day where I need something to keep my brain going. And these Shorts (and in “earlier times” – Reels) would feel like the equivalent of coffee to shake my system & feel more awake. Without it, I felt way too relaxed otherwise, and felt like sleeping throughout mid-morning to afternoon.

Wednesday, 8th January 2025

It’s not like I didn’t experiment with offline channels for book marketing & sales last year. While we all celebrate what works, I also want to be honest about what hasn’t worked for me.

Last year, I sent 10 copies of my books on “The Great Indian Book Tour” by the Aspiring Authors Alliance of India. I love that they’ve created a community for self-published authors, but from a sales-perspective, it was a dud. It wasn’t a big financial gamble. But I definitely spent more than I earned on: participation fee for each book fair, couriering my books to the AAAI team in Jaipur & then paying for the return courier as well. They also levied a 30% discount on my books without discussing with me, and eventually sold one copy. I’m sure they have their reasons, but this is an experiment that didn’t work for me.

Learnings from this experiment: My book, I completely acknowledge, isn’t a casual buy at Rs. 599. But it resonates deeply with those who face the challenge of creative mindblocks. And so, it does really well at events which cater to creative professionals. The probability of someone being interested is way higher at such events, as compared to general book fairs. (And so, I’m also keeping my expectations on sales at the Goa Book Fair under control)

However, I’m glad I tried it, and I hope this doesn’t deter me from exploring new avenues in the future as well! The idea is to keep failing forward.

Monday, 13th January 2025

The weekend, from Friday evening to Monday breakfast, has been incredibly social – we’ve done movie screenings at a friend’s house, met up with others for post-run lunches & done a super fun + productive cowork-at-home session with another. I feel more curious about & present to the lives of people immediately around me, with nothing else distracting me and my social battery fully charged.

I have a lot of long-distance friends but haven’t spoken in-depth with any of them this week.

Probably the most novel thing we did this weekend was a Print Party by the Lil Flea folks. One of my hesitations while leaving Instagram was that I won’t get to know about experiences such as this one. But I now realise — I have more mindspace to actually read what people are sharing about events on the many whatsapp groups that I’m on, and there are enough events being shared there.

This is also a note to self: I should treat whatsapp groups (specially with the creative community) as a channel for sharing what I create/host because many people might not be checking instagram as voraciously even if they’re technically on it.

In moments of boredom, I did end up watching youtube quite a bit for entertainment. I’m also currently reading Mapusa: Yesterday & Today, and I’m HOOKED because it’s the history of my own neighbourhood & I get to see it from such a new lens. It’s sparking a lot of new ideas in my head about a personal project, but surprisingly I’m very patient about it at the moment. I’ve decided to just read the book first & work on the project whenever I have time.

With many creative ideas, I have a sense of urgency to execute. It’s almost as if the idea will escape me if not brought to life immediately.

But after completing my book (over the course of 4 years), I have a fresh perspective — that ideas can be revisited and developed at the right time.

For the next two months, I’m definitely more focused on my running & work.

Last week in numbers:

Running + Workout: 3 hours 45 minutes (although I feel that the prep hours, warm ups and cool downs are the major chunk of the workout routine and that just goes untracked)

Client work: 21 hours 40 minutes (waaaay higher than my usual, but it might be the New Year energy. I don’t think this has to do with my social media sabbatical – although I suspect it does leave me with a clearer mind to tackle the work that just needs to be done)