Read and Write with Natasha
This podcast discusses writing life, reviews books, and interviews authors and industry professionals.
Read and Write with Natasha
From One-Way Ticket to Book Deal
What if you could design your entire life around freedom and flexibility?
That's exactly what Kayla Ihrig did when she bought a one-way ticket to Mexico in 2017, launching herself into the world of digital nomadism. This journey ultimately led to an unexpected book deal, "How to Be a Digital Nomad," and a thriving freelance career.
In this conversation, Kayla shares the truth about the digital nomad lifestyle beyond the Instagram highlights. While beautiful destinations like Croatia and Guatemala feature in her story, she discusses the challenges that rarely make it onto social media: loneliness, financial instability, and the mental toll of constant movement.
"It can be bad for your mental health," she admits, describing the delicate balancing act nomads face between enjoying their surroundings and maintaining professional commitments.
Key Topics Covered
The Reality Behind the Instagram Life
- The mental health challenges of constant movement
- Financial instability and uncertainty
- Dealing with loneliness on the road
From Content Creator to Published Author
- How daily LinkedIn posts led to a book deal
- Building an authentic audience through real experiences
- The power of consistent, genuine content creation
Marketing in the Digital Age
- Why podcast appearances trump social media for book promotion
- Building genuine connections through conversation
- Leveraging digital platforms for unprecedented opportunities
Making Nomadism Sustainable
- Organization strategies (Google Sheets for everything!)
- Establishing routines and family check-ins
- Finding community through coworking spaces
- The freedom to be present for life's crucial moments
Resources
Visit writingfromnowhere.com to learn more about Kayla's journey and discover resources for your own adventure in reimagining work and life.
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I've become a lot more productive and organized. I used to be a little bit disorganized and think, well, whatever, I'll remember that I'll do it later. You know, and because I know I might not remember there's so many moving parts of my life that I really have gotten a lot better at handling things right away. Yeah, life that I really have gotten a lot better at handling things right away.
Speaker 2:And yeah, hi friends, this is Read and Write with Natasha podcast. My name is Natasha Tynes and I'm an author and a journalist. In this channel, I talk about the writing life, review books and interview authors. Hope you enjoy the journey. Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Read and Write with Natasha. I have with me today Kayla Ehring, who is a traveler originally from Pennsylvania, usa. She bought a one-way ticket to Mexico in 2017 and has been living or traveling abroad ever since she started the blog Writing From Nowhere in 2018, in an attempt to write until she understood what she wanted to do with her life, not expecting to find the answer at her fingertips. So, kayla, welcome to the show and thank you for joining me today, and I'm excited to hear from you and hear about your new book about being a digital nomad. So, before we get into your book, tell me what is a digital nomad?
Speaker 1:A digital nomad is a remote worker who sometimes works from somewhere else. So you might travel all the time where you live, on the road and you're constantly traveling, or maybe you travel a week or two or a month out of the year. It's just that you take advantage of that ability to work from anywhere.
Speaker 2:And how do you find jobs? What do you do for a living, like if you say you work, what do you do?
Speaker 1:A lot of people find freelance role or freelance work where they freelance their skills or they find fully remote jobs, especially since the pandemic. There's a lot of options. There are job boards like remoteco flex jobs that are completely dedicated to remote roles.
Speaker 2:Okay, so how do you make a living?
Speaker 1:I make a living freelance writing.
Speaker 2:I'm self-employed. Okay, so can you tell us a bit about the kind of content you produce? How do you find clients, all of that?
Speaker 1:I have some regular retainer clients that I write and ghostwrite for every month and I also do have bigger freelance contracts with HubSpot, godaddy, where I produce content for their websites, and I found those through networking, so mostly LinkedIn. Linkedin's brought me a lot of writing work.
Speaker 2:Oh wow. So how do you do that? Do you cold DM them or do you just post content and they come to you? Just curious, I want to steal your strategy.
Speaker 1:I just try to get to know people. So I look for people who are writing for companies that I would like to write for and I just follow them and connect with them and talk and after we've been kind of chatting for a little while, I'll ask hey, do you want to hop on a coffee chat? So on LinkedIn, a coffee chat is like a 30 minute zoom call where you just talk and get to know each other and then you can ask questions more informally and get to know people that way.
Speaker 2:OK, so, after, I assume, a few years of doing that, you decided to publish a book, right? So tell us about the book, the title. You know the idea, all of that, and it's going to be released soon, right? Or it's already been released. It's in January, it's released in part of the world now.
Speaker 1:It's released worldwide January 30th, so part of it came out today in front of the world. Congrats.
Speaker 2:Thank you. So if you could tell us a bit about the book, the idea and all of that.
Speaker 1:I started sharing bits about the lifestyle on LinkedIn in 2020, 2021, whenever remote work was kind of becoming more popular. And then, all of a sudden, a lot of people were traveling and saying, oh, maybe I'll go on vacation and take my work with me, since I'm working remotely now and I just started sharing bits of the lifestyle on LinkedIn, trying to show a more realistic side of things. You know the honest, the downsides. Trying to show more realistic side of things. You know the honest, the downsides. I wanted to because there's a lot of like positivity out there, which is really good, but it's not the whole picture. It's kind of the highlights reel and a publisher saw my writing and liked it and reached out and offered me a book deal. Wow, you're lucky. Who's the publisher? Kogan Page. They're based in London, new York and New Delhi.
Speaker 2:And so they came out of the blue, they DM'd you and they said we've been reading your stuff and we want to publish a book.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow, it was a surprise. I did not expect that. Okay, and so how? What was your cadence on LinkedIn, like, how often did you publish? And it's curious because now you're offering a different way for publishing. I talked to a lot of authors and many of them struggled for years to get a book deal, and so basically, you were picked, which was amazing. So tell us what's your magic, what's your cadence? How did that happen?
Speaker 1:I was posting every day at this point on LinkedIn, so seven days a week, and I was posting pictures as well as text. I think something that worked for me was that I think whenever you post on LinkedIn, often people feel like they know you, especially if you post pictures. People see your face and they're like oh yeah, that's Natasha, How's she doing? And you actually people become familiar with you as if you're like a genuine friend or colleague.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, and what the content was about. The positive and the negative. So let's talk a bit about. I think we know the positive is the flexibility, all of that, but what is that negative? I don't want to sound negative, but just you know I'm a very positive person, but I'm just curious to hear what is the negative side to having this freedom of writing from anywhere? It?
Speaker 1:can be bad for your mental health. A lot of people experience a lot of loneliness and the instability. If you're also self-employed, it can be quite unstable, where you feel like I don't know where I'm going next month, I don't know how much money I'm making next month, I don't know if this client will still be with me next month. It can be very volatile and that instability can really lead to a lot of stress and a lot of overworking or also underworking, where you think, well, I'm in the moment. Now I've heard that from people that whenever I did a lot of interviews writing the book and people said that they could feel like their work was going badly, so they thought, well, I'm here now, I'm just going to enjoy it, and they kind of leaned really far away from work and damaged some relationships and, um, it's just difficult. You're kind of like driving really fast down a hill and you're trying to keep control.
Speaker 2:Would you go back to a nine to five, or will you always be a digital nomad?
Speaker 1:I will always work remotely. I don't think I'll go back to an office setting. It's been six or seven years for me and I don't see myself going back. I like the freedom too much. I rely on it so much.
Speaker 2:Why? What's the allure of of digital nomads? And besides being on the beach all day, what, what is? What is that? What is the allure it's?
Speaker 1:not just being able to say yes to the good things in life, like the fun, like going to, you know, traveling, it's also whenever things life happens, like, um, my husband's dad was sick and we were able to, you know, being able to say, yes, I'll be there, we're gonna come. You know, if being able to say yes, I'll be there, we're going to come, you know, if someone in my family, if something happens, I know that we can get on a plane and say, yeah, we're going to show up and be there. And, um, I wouldn't be able to do that with a normal job. And, uh, to me that's, that's really important, because I don't see my family regularly, so it's important to know that if something happens, I can be there.
Speaker 2:And you're still in Mexico, correct?
Speaker 1:No, I'm in um. Where am I? Sorry, I'm in Croatia at the moment.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, okay, so I guess you travel a lot. So how do you, how often do you change countries? And based on like, how do you make the decision?
Speaker 1:I change Airbnbs about once a month. I like to book places for a month to kind of settle in and feel at home, and it just depends. I think I've never stayed anywhere longer than two months. I kind of like to kind of move, it just depends on the weather, and I like to stay where it's, you know, sunny. It's not really sunny here today, but I let the Airbnb decide a lot of where, like where I go next. So I travel with my husband and we'll look and just see oh, there's a really nice B&B in Athens Like, oh, ok, maybe we'll make our way down there next, because we're just drifting around, we don't have an apartment or a home base.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, and your husband is also a digital nomad. Yeah, we run our freelance business together. Do you have any kids? No, If you ever decide to have kids, would you have them as well in this lifestyle? Or would that change things? Do you think I?
Speaker 1:think it would change things. But people do it with kids. People tend to do it a little bit differently. So some people do it at the same pace with kids, where their kids are doing school remotely, and some people settle in a country for like two years where they'll go and get their kids are doing school remotely, and some people settle in a country for like two years where they'll go and get their kids at an international school and they'll do two years at the school and in one place, then two years in the next place. I've met people who have done that and spoken really highly of it. You just have to find what works for everyone, because not all kids are good travel, you know it's not right for everyone. That's true in general, like it's not the right lifestyle for everybody, and it's especially true whenever you have someone with you know specific needs, like children.
Speaker 2:And what do you do about um Health insurance? I know this is a big thing, at least in the US, and I'm assuming you're a US citizen, so you won't be able to get free health insurance in European countries. But I'm just curious how do you work around this? I mean, you're still young and healthy, but you never know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you definitely need health insurance. I recommend Safety Wing. That's a really good company. I actually don't use them because I also have citizenship in the Netherlands, so I have health insurance through them, but Safety Wing is a really reputable company that people rave about. That's what I recommend to US citizens. Yeah, it's a good option, okay.
Speaker 2:So you're also a European citizen, so that also helps with the mobility correct. Yes, changing countries and all of that. So that's great. So I want to go back to the book deal, because I think that's the most fascinating part of your story is the book deal. And so they came to you. They told you I want you to write a book. So they came to you. They told you I want you to write a book. And did you have? Did you take your already published articles and publish them, or what did you do?
Speaker 1:Well, I started with an outline of the book, so they didn't offer me the book. Deal flat out that you know. They said we still have to make a proposal and get it accepted. But we are offering this. You know we want to pursue this with you. And they my editor was confident. He said we just need to put together a proposal and I'm pretty sure we're going to come back with an offer. And they yeah. So I made an outline for the book and filled out the proposal with my editor and then he took that to the board and then they reviewed it as they review all of their new titles and approved it.
Speaker 1:And it was a pretty fast process. I was amazed by how fast it was.
Speaker 2:Are there any other books about digital nomadism, or is that one of the few?
Speaker 1:There are. There are quite a few. Some of them cover different angles. I really went with kind of like the movement as a whole in all of the options, so trying to understand, not saying you should go here, like here's the five best places for digital nomads, this is where you should go. But I really tried to help people understand all of the options, like the different types of work and the different options for where to go and how do you know what to do and what budgeting tier should you be in. And I also told a lot of stories. I interviewed digital nomads spanning five decades of travel. I went all. I found a digital nomad from the 80s who I believe is the first digital nomad, and told stories from every decade to kind of track the movement as it evolved and shine a light on those people who were doing it before it was popular.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, I don't think it was called digital nomads back then. What was it called A traveler? They were called tech nomads. Tech nomads oh wow, yeah, that was the original term. And who coined the term digital nomad? Do you know?
Speaker 1:I actually don't know. The term tech nomad was coined by Stephen K Roberts.
Speaker 2:All right, so what is, how are you planning to market your book and where are you with this? With this part Is that you know, I personally, marketing is is harder than writing the book. Um, so, if you can tell, you know the listeners and the viewers, what are your plans to market this, this book?
Speaker 1:the book. Um got a lot of marketing through podcasts. That's been my main focus. So I thought, thought about social media and writing articles for people and for like websites, and it just made the most sense to me to try to have conversations with people who already had an audience like this, people who are interested already, people who are interested in reading and writing and travel, and it's been pretty successful. I think this is my 41st podcast interview. I have like 55 on the calendar, so it's been a lot.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, All right, Okay, You're busy, Okay. And so people listen to it and they contact you afterwards and they say you know, we listen to this, you know we want more info. Or how do you know if if your appearance made made a dent in the sales?
Speaker 1:I am seeing often like after a podcast episode is released, I'm seeing that my book jumps back up to being the number one new release in its category on Amazon. So I'm seeing that reaction happen after a lot of podcast releases. So I can see that people are listening and it is reaching people who are interested. Oh wow.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you do content creation for brands. You ghostwrite. Do you ghostwrite for brands or individuals like celebrities?
Speaker 1:Brands for blog content. So for businesses like that are selling products, I blog write. I do like SEO articles for them so that they can show up on Google for searches. Yeah, that's my specialty in the writing world is really SEO writing.
Speaker 2:Okay, and how did you teach yourself? How did you train yourself? What were the tools that helped you get to that stage of your life?
Speaker 1:My own website was the most important thing. So I used to write articles and try to get other people to publish them as like a guest writer, and I was always rejected. I'm like writing articles hoping people will publish them for free and the answer was so often no, we're not interested or you just don't even hear back. And I thought, why am I begging people to publish my writing whenever I can self-publish my writing and I did that for years online and that's a huge part of what led to the book deal, because they found me on LinkedIn. But then they went and they read my website and liked it, so I know that was a big stepping stone.
Speaker 2:Interesting. Do you use other social media channels besides LinkedIn, or is LinkedIn the one? Linkedin's the?
Speaker 1:big one. I also use Pinterest. That drives traffic to my website. But that's not really social media, that's more of a search engine. But I'm very active on Pinterest as well. My website reaches I don't know a million people a month on Pinterest, so it's a pretty built up there established.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, I have now the title for you for your new book. How do you, how do you use Pinterest to promote your work? So, how do you use, as a writer, how do you use Pinterest?
Speaker 1:I create thumbnails, so those are like the images that you see on Pinterest. Every image that you see was created by somebody and I create pins you know that they're called and then those are like book covers for every article on my website and then I put them up on Pinterest and optimize them for search and then whenever somebody searches like Pinterest marketing, they see you know an image that I created and if they click on it it goes back to my website. And that's also how I used to get a lot of clients. Because I used to do Pinterest management, I was like a side hustle to my freelance writing and that was how most of my clients found me. They searched on either Google or Pinterest for answers to their questions and then came to my website.
Speaker 2:Ah, interesting. So the thumbnails that you post are original pictures that you took from your travels, or are they like general?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're actually graphics, so they're mostly words like. It's quite bland. It's like a white background with text. It says like Pinterest 30 Pinterest marketing tips. It's pretty, it's, they're not hard to make. I make them in Canva.
Speaker 2:Okay, oh, wow, Interesting. So, yeah, that's, that should be your next course. Sell a digital course for for authors how to promote their work on on Pinterest. So what is your day to day like as a digital nomad? I'm curious.
Speaker 1:It's actually kind of boring to most people. I wake up, I work and whenever I'm done working I go out and that's the part of my day that's different. I work eight hours most days, but I put my, I close my laptop and I go. Like today, I took a break in the afternoon and I went for a walk along the Mediterranean and you know, like got a cup of coffee and being out in the downtime is what's different, but the work is still, you know, 40 hours a week. It's not sometimes, you know, or more, it's not a vacation.
Speaker 2:Do you believe in the concept of like the four hour week, like Tim Ferriss? And all of them that automate everything, live from anywhere and work few hours. Is that even feasible? I liked the four hour work week.
Speaker 1:I liked the book hour work week. I liked the book because I think it opened people's minds and I know it opened my mind. I thought, oh, I hadn't considered. You know a lot of these approaches to work, but it's not my future. I don't see that happening and I'm also not trying. I know some people are going all in on scaling their businesses really heavily and honestly I'm just happy to do my job and you know I love the clients that I have and I'm happy to just do that work and then enjoy my life. I'm not trying to like hustle at all at all moments. I mean to some people maybe my business would. They would say, like what's wrong with you? You should be growing more and scaling and you know, doubling your revenue and I'm just enjoying what I have. I'm not always trying to to grow it more.
Speaker 2:Maybe I'm a bad entrepreneur, but no, no, but that's good, you know, you know when enough is enough and um, I, I like that approach, um, so okay. So do you think this is the future of work? Do you think this is eventually where we're all going? It's not. Is the nine to five office job is dead?
Speaker 1:I don't think it's going to die, but I do think that people are a lot of people are going to want the flexibility and not everyone wants it and not everyone does better working somewhere else. Some people enjoy the office, do better there and can't do their job elsewhere, but there's also a huge group of people who would enjoy doing, you know, working from somewhere else, whether it's home, whenever your kids are sick or whenever you're sick, but you're still well enough to work, but you don't want to go and be around other people. I think it's that flexibility is the real conversation that's being had here, and flexibility that demand and interest is not going away at all.
Speaker 2:Okay. Are you working on other books in the future? Now this book is done, what does the future hold for you? Oh, that's a good question.
Speaker 1:I am interested in writing another book, but I'm not sure yet what it would be about. I've had some ideas. I'm really interested in writing a book on blogging, but, um, I already pitched that to my publisher and they turned it down. So, uh, maybe I'll hustle that idea to somebody else, or maybe it's not very profitable, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, and where? Where is your next destination now, after you're in Kuwait?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm in Croatia.
Speaker 2:Up next is Bosnia, oh nice, and what do you take into consideration when you travel? Is it the weather? Is it the price of the Airbnb?
Speaker 1:It's how nice the Airbnb is, to be honest. Well, a country has to be safe, but after that it also, I mean it just needs to be convenient, like a nice place to be. So like if I work from my Airbnb, which means that I need to be very comfortable there. The internet needs to be fast enough, it needs to have a kitchen, all those basics, and whenever I shut down and go outside, I want to be immediately in something. I want to be immediately in nature or in the town center or doing something and not having to, like wait and get on a bus and go for 20 minutes to be around people. For me, you just, it just needs to have that ease and um and then things. I've changed locations often enough that I don't really get sick of places, so I'm not super picky. As long as it's comfortable enough in the Airbnb, um, and there's something happening outside the front door, then I'm happy. Did you manage?
Speaker 2:to make any friendship with this nomad lifestyle. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I meet a lot of other people online and in real life. Um, if you go to coworking spaces, you meet a lot of people who are doing the same thing.
Speaker 2:Ah, okay, and what nationalities are the digital nomads? I'm just curious.
Speaker 1:It's a big mix. It's a big right now in Europe. We're seeing mostly Europeans. It's a pretty good mixing mix of people. If you look at the statistics I'm forgetting, I think that one of the biggest groups is I just looked one of the biggest groups of digital nomads is from Brazil, I think, which I thought was interesting.
Speaker 2:I don't think I've met any Brazilian digital nomads what is the top destination for digital nomads?
Speaker 1:Chiang Mai. Thailand is seen as kind of like the capital of the digital nomad community. But every area has its big, you know kind of go-to destination. In South America, a lot of people go to Medellin, colombia. In Central America, a lot of people go to Medellin, colombia. In Central America, a lot of people go to Mexico City and I'm actually thinking I don't know where it is. In Europe I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:How do people decide on these places? Is there like a website for digital nomads or forums?
Speaker 1:There's a lot of information. Actually, if you Google like where you want to go and you do digital nomad guide to you know any country, it'll kind of tell you what the hotspots are. And I think a lot of people just show up and then really like it. Like I've met people who they said, oh, we went to Thailand or Vietnam for a month, but we really liked it. We ended up staying there for like three years because, uh, that you've the flexibility to do that and you can also, uh, yeah, live places long-term, you can start, you can integrate. I actually wasn't European, I didn't have European citizenship until this year. Well, last year I earned a second passport. Because I was. I moved to the Netherlands for my husband and then I was able to like kind of sponsor. He sponsored me on my initial visa but then I was able to sponsor myself. She's saying I'm self-sufficient, I make money online, I make it, I can support myself and through that I was able to integrate and get a second nationality.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, wow. And how many years have you been doing this? Since 2017, you said, yeah, yeah, that's a long time, so that's like seven years. Oh wow, you're a veteran. How did the pandemic?
Speaker 1:affect you. The pandemic made travel. I mean it wasn't a good time to be traveling. I stayed put where I was at, I wasn't moving from. I mean I had an apartment as a home base in the Netherlands and we had been using that apartment, as you know, in traveling as much as possible. But yeah, during the pandemic we just stayed where we were. We did a little bit of hiking, some house sitting whenever people were gone In the Netherlands. We spent some time in other cities and just, yeah, getting through it like everybody else, what was your favorite destination?
Speaker 2:Oh, ever, I guess. So yeah, if you can come up with one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really loved Guatemala. Guatemala. That was one of my favorite countries. That's where I met my husband and it has a. It was a great place, yeah why?
Speaker 2:what's what's so special about it?
Speaker 1:it's really really beautiful and um, very colorful and um just found the people were very friendly and I was in Spanish school there, so I I was practicing, you know, conversing with people in some places. They like don't want to, they don't appreciate if you're struggling to communicate, and they're like, ah, hurry up, you know. But I felt like people were really nice, like if you were walking down the street and it was raining, someone would like wave you under to come under their umbrella with you and they, you know, like every time I think I got caught in the rain like 10 times and this always happened. I thought this is really nice. Like I wouldn't have seen that in Chicago, where I was living, like that wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 2:No, no, it wouldn't have happened. Yeah, they will probably call the police on you if you ask. So okay, let's see. How have you changed as a person because of this.
Speaker 1:I've become a lot more productive and organized. I used to be a little bit disorganized and think, well, whatever, I'll remember that I'll do it later, you know, and because I know I might not remember uh, there's so many moving parts of my life that I really have gotten a lot better at handling things right away. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Where are your top tech tools that you use for this? The writing, all of that? You know the organization.
Speaker 1:Google Sheets. I'm a big spreadsheets person, so I break down every goal into like. I break it down into steps and then I put a deadline on when do I want those steps done. That's how I wrote my book. So I sat down and my editor said I had six months and I broke down my whole book based on like the word divided, the word count over that many weeks and then how many words do I need to have written each week to meet that goal? And then I just followed that and I was able to have my book done on time that way.
Speaker 2:That was a huge I don't think I could have done without my spreadsheet. Oh wow, okay. What about other tools that you use for?
Speaker 1:for your writing. Do you use AI? Do you use um? I don't like AI. I'm not a fan, so I especially not for writing, um, I don't like it. So I use to do write my articles for, like, search engine optimization, I use the tools key search and surfer SEO, okay, and I also use Canva a lot to design graphics and yeah, those are my big tools. I'm pretty reliant on those few things.
Speaker 2:Okay. So do you have the book with you now? Can you I do? Yeah, yeah, okay. I just got it in the mail. Okay, it looks nice. So if you can tell the listeners and the viewers where they can find this book, what are they going to get out of it?
Speaker 1:The book is a very realistic explanation of the lifestyle and you'll hear from people who have been living this lifestyle over the years doing, you know, in different places, doing different things. So I wanted the readers to feel like they understand, like they have friends, like it's not like abstract, so it's very friendly. It's also very step by step, like how do you plan, what do you need to be aware of, and helping you make decisions along the way. And you can find it in all the normal book places Amazon, target, barnes, noble. It's online everywhere and I'm not sure where it is on the shelves yet or independent bookstores. Those details haven't been released yet.
Speaker 2:Is it in an audio format? No, not yet. Okay, that might be good for digital nomads because they can listen to it on the road or on a plane, or you know that would um, definitely, yeah, Um, what was like the craziest, some of the craziest things that happened to you that you're comfortable sharing on on air things that happened to you that you're comfortable sharing on air.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is hard. There's a couple of stories that definitely come to mind that I don't want to share on air, things like, yeah, someone inviting me somewhere and then like do you want to ride? And me saying yes, and here they were like doing something illegal that I didn't know about. So I won't go into those details, but I always space out whenever I'm asked this question and then I'll think of 10 good stories, the second we hang up. But I hate, I'm sorry, I'm really going to space here.
Speaker 2:It's okay, like, I'll give you some prompts. Like maybe you felt in a dangerous situation. You were surprised by something that changed completely your perspective, a very interesting character that you'll never forget. Something you learned that you would not have learned if you had not traveled to the country. Yeah, here's some prompts. Those were good.
Speaker 1:I guess one of the most surprising things that ever happened that I would have thought, oh, that's like I couldn't do that. You know, one time I was on taking a train, a long train ride in Europe, starting in the Netherlands and going down to I forget where I was going Greece and sorry, I forget where to Italy, and the train just stopped and like made everybody get off and we thought the next train was going to come, and here it didn't. They were like, yeah, that comes in the morning and you can't stay here, so you have to leave. And we ended up having to squat in a parking garage overnight because we had no idea that we had to, and it was winter and we were like sitting there, bundled up with all of our clothes on playing chess Cause we have a little travel chess board and I thought this is, it was, yeah, one of those very random situations and I would have thought, I don't know, I could never do that. I could never just, like you know, hang out in a parking garage until literally, like waiting for the sun to come up. We were there all night, it was so cold and um, and there was a hotel nearby but it was really expensive and we were like we're not going to pay that much money for a few hours and I'm trying to think what else?
Speaker 1:We went hiking. My husband and I went hiking. We weren't working, we were just taking a few days off work to go hiking, and a bear ate all of our food and we had to hitchhike a ride out of the woods. But the guy who picked us up hitchhiking said hey, you want to come with me, I'm going to this bluegrass festival. This was in the US and we said, oh, okay, and we ended up just going with him for this like four day bluegrass festival and it was some of the most fun I think I've ever had. We just camped outside of his RV and he was retired and he was really nice and took us around and it was, yeah, so funny, such good memories. Then he invited us to come visit him in Texas, which we are, arkansas which we haven't done yet, but I still want to do Fun.
Speaker 2:How do you keep up with everyone? Email, what's up?
Speaker 1:Yeah, just kind of texting. I kind of make it a point to check in with people. On certain days of the week, like on Sunday I like to FaceTime with my parents and on Wednesday I call with my sister and just trying to post updates on Facebook, not all the time, but often enough that people feel like, oh yeah, hey, there you are. You know I don't post often. I don't like I don't know, it's not like a regular part of my life. But whenever there's something nice to share, it's nice to like show your face, and I always like seeing other people. You know, even people I haven't seen in years. I think it's so nice to see you and see how you're doing and it's such a nice, easy way to stay in touch. Do you journal? I do journal, yeah, but I journal digitally and then I like clear the page at the end of the day so it doesn't stay there. Oh really, why, I don't know. I guess I'm afraid people are going to read it. No, one's going to read it. No, I don't know. Do you journal?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do, I do, but I've been journaling since I was 13, on and off. And when I went back and I read my my journal when I was 13, it was really eyeopening, because every day was like this. At the end of each page was this was the worst day of my life and this is like, and it was like be something stupid, like fighting with a friend or whatever. And it's funny how, like, when you're a teen agent, everything is a big deal. And now I have a teen agent. My daughter is a teen agent and it really helped me understand her because I time traveled to her age.
Speaker 1:so it really fascinating too, that's so sweet, that's like the sweetest thing I've ever heard. I actually felt that way yesterday because my book is launched, you know, released today in part of the world, and yesterday I was like this is the worst day of my life. If I had an undo button I would have hit it yesterday. I was like sick to my stomach just so worried about the book coming out. And people yeah, what people would think I'm not, yeah, it's. It's horribly, it's terrifying. I've never been so scared in my life. And even today I don't feel good. Today I feel terrible. This is like the second worst day.
Speaker 2:No, I feel great. I mean it's usually the journey, not the destination. I mean, if it becomes a New York Times bestseller, great, if it doesn't, you had a great time. And that's how I look at things. It's really the journey, yeah.
Speaker 1:Even if things like it, it's hard. Yeah, I'm scared, I feel like what if? Yeah, I'm very afraid, I'm very fearful.
Speaker 2:Even if you know, if let's say, God forbid, it doesn't do well. So what you learned from it, you know you will do better the next time. It's just part of the journey. Embrace it, but I'm sure it will do great. It's a very cool topic. So, before we conclude, how can people get in touch with you?
Speaker 1:If anyone wants to get in touch, they can go to my website, which is writingfromnowherecom, or they can email me, kayla, at writingfromnowherecom. I'm happy to talk to listeners.
Speaker 2:Ah, cool, and I might hit you up to get some Pinterest tips.
Speaker 1:I really like that. I'm happy to do a little training. We can do a Zoom and I'll show you how it all works.
Speaker 2:Ah, fun, cool. Well, thank you very much. This has been really fun and best of luck with the book, and I'm here to help and support if you need anything and for anyone who is listening or watching. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Read and Write with Natasha and, until we meet again, thank you for tuning in to Read and Write with Natasha. I'm your host, natasha Tynes. If today's episode inspired you in any way, please take the time to review the podcast. Remember to subscribe and share this podcast with fellow book lovers. Until next time. Happy reading, happy writing.
