My Journey To Becoming A Writer

When I was very young, I wanted to become a news reader. Because I was in awe of news readers on DD channel. They spoke English so fluently and elegantly. I wanted to be just like them.

As I got a little older I wanted to become a gynaecologist. Mainly because babies were cute and I thought that's what gynaes do all all the time - handle cute babies. I dropped this idea when I learnt that I need to be super intelligent to become one, be good in science and maths and I can't faint at the sight of blood. 

    

Photo by Matti Keponen on Unsplash

When I was studying for my graduate degree in management studies, I was interested in Public Relations. I loved the whole communications aspect of this field. My final year project was also centred around PR. 

Then my interest shifted to marketing when I was studying for my postgraduate degree. Advertising, CRM, copywriting, product development, logos, branding, market research, design - I was fascinated by all of these spheres of marketing. 

As I neared the last semester of my PG, I knew campus placements will start soon and I will have to get ready for interviews. I was kind of excited to get some new product development role or something in advertising. 

There were two problems, though. Marketing majors were being offered only sales roles. And second, my unmanageable periods meant I couldn't accept a job that required me to be on field or had long work hours. Hence, sales and business development were out of the picture. So was advertising. 

My big breakthrough came in 2011 and that too in a form of failure that changed my career path for good. 

I loved reading. Hated writing essays. I briefly considered becoming a writer until I read an article that said - paraphrasing it - 'you shouldn't become a writer just because you love reading'. The idea went into trash. It is important to point out that during this time only the main writing jobs were popular/known - like copywriter, scriptwriter etc. Content writing was still a new industry. At least for me. 

In July 2011, I read a hiring call for editors posted by a scientific communications company. The job description was so interesting that I applied with zero editing experience and academic background. I cleared the first round - grammar. The second round was the editing test, which I failed, of course! But by the end of this experience I had found what I was looking for.  I wanted to become a writer. 

At the end of July 2011 I applied for a freelance content writer position at a SEO content agency. I got the job and worked there for a month. By the end of August I had interviewed and secured a full time writer job in an ecommerce solutions company. And from September 2011, I started my writing journey. 

The full time writing thing lasted for less than a year before I had to switch to freelancing again. Why? That deserves a separate entry.  One day I will write about my journey to becoming a freelance writer and what led to this decision and how it has been.