I'm a Jordanian-American author and journalist with over two decades of experience. I have been published in the Washington Post, Nature, Elle, Esquire, among others. I'm also the recipient of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award Literary Conference for my short story Ustaz Ali. I publish the weekly newsletter "The Writing Goldmine," in which I give tips on monetizing your writing and the content creation journey.
My entry into Write of Passage| The Storyteller's Quest Vol. 9
ππ» Hi friends,
The past few weeks have been grueling. I had tons of client work (a good problem to have) and I slacked off a bit on creating and even sending this newsletter.
From writing to translating documents into Arabic, and pitching to publications, I have been slammed. Last weekend, I worked non-stop all weekend until late into the night, and my poor husband had to take care of everything, the house, the kids, the food as I churned away.
Amidst this challenging week, I got some fantastic news. I received a scholarship to attend Write of Passage, a top-notch six-week cohort run by prolific writer David Perell. I'm so excited that I will get the chance to hone my writing skills from someone as talented as Perell.
Meanwhile, I continue to prepare for my "Getting published" cohort in May. I'm lining up great speakers for what will be a great learning experience for all.
βHere is more info if you are interested to learn more about how to get published and see your name in print.
I hope you enjoy this week's installment of The Storyteller's Quest, and if you would like to support me as I keep sending this free newsletter, here is my tip jar.β
Keep creating!
Natasha
πΌοΈ Photo of the week
I have the TV on as I write this, and I'm watching the news footage of Russia's attack on Ukraine. There is a lot of depressing and stressful news these days, and I'm worried about a number of my friends' families who are currently in Kyiv and the surrounding cities, so I thought a picture of my cat Smokey might put a smile on our faces.
π€© Things that wowed me
π§βπ¨ Newsletter: Growth Currency is one of the newsletters that I enjoy and look forward to every week. The main focus of this newsletter is content creation and how to be successful in this creator economy. It has a lot of helpful stuff that I end up bookmarking and reading again and again.
πΉ Creator Economy: I attended a live chat with creator Justin Welsh who is known for his Linkedin content, and it was a delight. I learned a lot especially about the importance of creating a content matrix (he shared with us his Notion template).
𧡠Thread: Dickie Bush's Twitter thread on Mr Beast is a great example of how to create a viral thread that will break the internet. Dickie Bush is hands down the master of Twitter threads.
βπ» Writing life: Two prolific creators, David Perell and Ali Abdal, met in person to talk about making money from online writing in 2022: I like Ali's idea of "Document donβt create.β A must watch.β
π Book: I just finished reading Klara and the Sun, another masterpiece by the Noble Prize Winner Japanese-British author Kazuo Ishiguro.This was an enjoyable, fast, read. A lot of concepts to ponder. Shall we fear that AI's might take over our livelihood? Can there be a bond between a human and an AI? Do AI's have feelings?
βπ» Content creation
In the past week, I wrote a very personal essay:
- βHow I got scammed for $1700 on Upwork.
- I also created this slideshow of my roadmap to getting published.β
Are you looking for a content writer for your company's blog or publication? Let's chat. Email me at: natasha@natashastynes.comβ
πΉ The YouTube experiment
I continue to try to be consistent and post one video every week on my YouTube channel The channel is not growing as fast I thought it would be by this time, and I have less than 100 subscribers which is very frustrating.
If you are reading this and enjoy my work and would want to support it, please consider subscribing to my channel. I would really appreciate it.
Last week I posted an interview with Jordanian author Rana Sweis.
In this interview we talked about:
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βοΈ The grueling process that is publishing.
βοΈ Receiving rejections, and believing in yourself.
βοΈ Using the five senses in telling a good story.
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πΉ There are a lot of golden nuggets in this amazing interview.
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ποΈ Read and Write with Natasha Podcast
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A new podcast episode is up. It's a interview with Jordanian author Sara Badawieh in which we discuss the following topics:
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β‘οΈ Should fiction authors air dirty laundry?
β‘οΈ Sara's writing process.
β‘οΈ The research Sara did while writing the novel Dalia.
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ποΈ Listen to the interview here.
Please feel free to subscribe, comment and rate. So grateful for your support.
ππΌ Recommended by yours truly
- If youβre thinking about joining the online writing course Ship 30 for 30, I have an affiliate link.I took Ship 30 for 30 last month and it was an amazing experience. I learned a lot, joined new communities and increased my Twitter followers. I enjoyed it that much, that I'm taking it for a second time. I highly recommend it.
β - One app that I have been using on a daily basis and becoming an integral part of my content creation process is Brain FM, an online music platform that helps you get in the "flow", and do the tasks that require deep work. The good news is that Brain FM is offering readers of this newsletter a 20% discount. Just click here, subscribe and get your discount.
Are you looking for a writer for your company's blog or publication?
Do you need help with your digital media strategy?
Let's chat!
Email me at natasha@natashastynes.comβ
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If you would like to show your support for The Storyteller's Quest, you can leave your support here.
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Natasha Tynes
I'm a Jordanian-American author and journalist with over two decades of experience. I have been published in the Washington Post, Nature, Elle, Esquire, among others. I'm also the recipient of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award Literary Conference for my short story Ustaz Ali. I publish the weekly newsletter "The Writing Goldmine," in which I give tips on monetizing your writing and the content creation journey.
Many of you here know I write for a living- a dream job, to say the least. I have been doing it as a full-time job for over three years now, and I must say that the rewards outweigh all the stress and obstacles that come along the way. My income is divided between client work, commissioned articles, ghostwriting products, coaching, and teaching. It took me over three years to understand the business side of things, and I'm still learning and growing, and enjoying every second along the way....
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It has been a grueling few weeks as I juggled two huge personal projects in addition to all my clients' work. The first one, which I launched over the weekend, is my self-paced ghostwriting mini-course titled "How to make income from ghostwriting." I launched this course on Kajabi, and I had a lot to learn about how the platform works and how best to use all of its features. The Kajabi team was amazing in onboarding me and provided me with four free one-on-one consulting sessions, which was...