How I realised why my past was holding me back! Sometimes the only way to move forwards is to look behind you. I believe we are all unique and should be able to build a career and sustain a lifestyle doing something that makes us happy.

1. THERE: THEIR: THEY’RE
MY JOURNEY TO DOING WHAT IS RIGHT FOR ME! (AND WHY WE SHOULD
ALWAYS ENCOURAGE KIDS TO PURSUE THEIR DREAMS)
How to comfort a writer

2. WHERE DID IT ALL START?
• Pre-school I was full of imagination, regularly made up stories (and ‘forced’ the
adults in my life to play along!)
• I was a real free spirit
• Lived life my own way
• Was confident and outspoken

3. This is me aged
5.
Full of
imagination and
dreams…

4. AND THEN I STARTED SCHOOL!
• On my first day I had to be forcibly dragged away from my mother (I remember
clinging on to the door frame as well!)
• I found the noise of a classroom overwhelming and lost the confidence I’d had
before
• I quickly learned the easiest way to get along was to conform and do as I was
told
• I became a quiet, reserved and (at school anyway) obedient girl – because I
learned that was what was expected

5. SO WHAT DID SCHOOL ACTUALLY HELP ME WITH?
• I learned to read! The black squiggles in books all of a sudden made sense – I was
a bright kid but had up to that point lived in my head, in my
imagination…suddenly I had discovered a way to share all these ideas and
stories…
• From the point I learned to read, to the point I’d read every book the school
could provide was less than 2 years…by the last year of primary school they more
or less left me to my own devices!

6. LOSING THE PLOT
• Secondary school taught me a lot – especially that it’s easier not to rock the boat!
• I was classed as ‘clever’ but never encouraged to follow my creativity – clever kids did Uni and
‘important subjects’ like math’s and science
• I did better than OK – in the subjects I liked (I excelled in English) and not bad in everything else
and expressed a desire to follow a writing career – ‘lead and balloon’ sum up how that idea went
down!
• Not being encouraged to pursue my dreams led me to a humdrum (if not unsuccessful) life
working for other people – keeping them organised (arghhhh!!)
BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT IS CONSIDERED NORMAL AND ACCEPTABLE AND I WAS
CONDITIONED TO ACCEPT THIS BY SOCIETY/SCHOOL/FAMILY

7. GETTING MY MOJO BACK
• I continued making up stories and poems during all the routine years of working
and raising kids (my daughters loved my made up bedtime stories)
• 2010 I started ‘blogging’ – just stories of my life – and by the time the blog site I
was using closed I had an audience of 100k plus
• 2013 began a novel (now being published)
• 2016 started working for myself as a VA
• 2018 realized I COULD EARN (a little!) from writing and so began the career
switch to content creation (whilst plotting/writing a sci-fi trilogy)

8. CONTENT MATTERS
• The words your potential customer see MATTER so make them count!
• Use correct spellings (there, their, they’re/ your, you’re/ were, where, we’re etc)
• Use language your readers will understand (gauge your audience level – don’t use
long words for the sake of it – even though they may sound better!)
• Make your content interesting – break up long blocks of text into manageable chunks
(paragraphs) and use punctuation to make any long sentences readable (try saying the
words out loud and listen to where you naturally break the text)
• Don’t plagiarise someone else’s content!

9. CONTENT MATTERS
• Having said don’t plagiarise – DO look at the type of content your competitors use
and do some research on keywords…once your content is out there it needs to be
found!
• Keep your material up to date and relevant
• Give VALUE to your offerings – a reason to read your content, be that learning
something new, accessing something unique or even just to be entertained
• Link your social media (if you have any) to your content, for example use extracts from
a monthly blog in ‘memes’ for Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter and link back to the full
article
• You will be judged on the material you put out there so make it count, make it correct
and make it memorable

10. WHY OUTSOURCE?
If you have confidence in your writing ability GO FOR IT, write your own web
content, blogs etc…it’s your ‘voice’, and your (or your company’s) personality you
need to get across to your potential customers after all.
However if you have any doubts, be that in your use of correct spelling/grammar
OR the time it will take you to create GOOD content then OUTSOURCE.
You will continually push something you don’t like doing to the bottom of your ‘to
do’ pile, so find someone you like/trust, brief them properly (don’t expect your
content writer to be a mind reader!) and let them get on with it.

11. CAN YOU AFFORD TO OUTSOURCE?
• Of course you can! It depends what you consider is valuable to you – your time
writing your own material versus the cost of paying someone else.
• For example, when was the last time you spent £50-£60 on something you wanted –
shoes/meal out/handbag/new gadget whatever? Presumably you did so a) because
you wanted whatever it was and b) because it was (to you) of value…
• For roughly the same price (length dependent) you could have bespoke piece of
content written…isn’t that of value? (Or you could spend hours doing it yourself which
would probably cost you more in the long run )

12. HOMOPHONE TIPS
THERE THEIR
Think of the word HERE, to
remember this is a location
word (you can also use this
tip for WHERE)
Imagine a person in place
of the letter ‘I’ to
remember this denotes
‘ownership’
It’s over there with their
friends.

13. THEY’RE }
YOU’RE }
WE’RE }
YOUR
The apostrophe indicates a missing
letter – ‘a’ - THEY ARE, YOU ARE
Look for OUR (no apostrophe)
to indicate an ownership word.
e.g. They’re coming to stay with
us, I hope you’re OK with that?
We’re all going to have fun.
Your bum looks big in that dress!

14. LAST WORDS…
On the first slide I said – ‘why we should encourage kids to follow their dreams’.
Actually it’s more than that – we should STOP funneling kids down one linear route
of education and qualifications at the expense of their inherent nature. It’s taken me
50 years to undo what I learnt at primary school – i.e. CONFORMITY and to get back
to what I was always good at but told I couldn’t make a living out of! Who knows,
with less pressure to be like everyone else, I might have already written a best seller
LET’S CELEBRATE UNIQUENESS