So last fall I don't know if you guys remember, but I signed a book deal with a publishing company to publish one of the novels that I've written.
And it was one of the greatest days of my life, because Truly all I want in this world is to be a writer.
It brings me so much joy just pure, just joy from my heart, to be able to spend time writing.
And I can't spend time writing because Writing is not how I make money currently and I would love love, to be able to earn an income writing, just just because I love it so much.
Like I truly, truly love it.
I would do it every day, all day if I could.
Anyways, they sent me a draft yesterday and they were like okay Isabelle, this is your last chance to make changes.
And I pulled up the draft and I realized in that moment oh my gosh, I am about to publish a bad book.
It is a bad book.
And I can't blame myself because the thing is, is I wrote this book years ago at this point.
I have written multiple books since and I've gotten way better as a writer.
And in the process of getting better.
It's giving me a whole new perspective And when I opened this draft I just kind of realized like oh my gosh, this book needs to be rewritten.
Like a lot of it.
You know what I mean?
And I have one week to do it.
So this is what I'm going to do this week.
All I am going to do is write.
And I think I need to put myself on a very strict schedule of waking up at like 5am, going to bed at midnight and just not sleeping that much this week.
I need to fix this book.
I really need to fix this book.
So that's basically what I did.
Every day I would get up around 5 a.m.
I would brush my teeth and then make a cup of coffee and walk down to my studio and I would sit down and I would write.
In the morning I would drink a coffee, and then later tea, and then water, and then more coffee, until eventually I would end up with like 10 different cups around me and I wrote basically every single moment of every day.
Sometimes I would change locations.
If it was warm, I would go and write outside.
But yeah, I worked on this book until midnight or 1am every night.
Or just until I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore.
When you're a beginner at something, you can look at what you've made and honestly think yeah, that's pretty good.
But then you keep going and you get better and you learn more and eventually you look back at that same thing and you cringe a little like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I ever thought that was good.
I remember that feeling so clearly from when I first started making videos.
I'll watch those early videos now and be shocked that I couldn't see what was wrong with them.
But that's the thing, I just couldn't see it yet.
I had to get better before I could understand what was missing.
In my head this book was pretty good, but when I read through it earlier this week, it felt like I was reading something completely new.
Like my eyes had finally caught up to everything I didn't know before.
This is what I've realized.
Seeing the flaws doesn't mean you failed.
It means you grew more and you learned more and you got better.
There was a version of me who made those early videos and thought they were good because that was the best I could do at the time.
We're going to outgrow parts of ourselves and we're going to look back and see all the ways we would do it different.
But that doesn't mean the old version of you was wrong.
It just means you kept going and you grew and you got better.
Good morning.
I am dead.
I am so dead.
I've been through war this week.
You're thinking, oh, Isabel, you're so dramatic.
I am dramatic.
I have not been through war, but I have had a week.
Oh, it's probably around 530.
Today is Friday, May.
What day is today?
Let's look.
Let's see what day it is.
Why won't my phone tell me?
It's May 15th.
It's May 15th.
Oh my gosh.
Hi, baby.
So you guys know I live in the middle of nowhere.
But I also share a lot of my life online, which is kind of a strange combination because it means people can see pieces of my life.
But that doesn't mean I want all of my personal information floating around the internet too.
That's why I started using Incogni.
Incogni helps remove your personal information from data broker sites.
Things like your address, phone number, email and other details that can end up online without you realizing it.
So when I first signed up, I was honestly so shocked by the amount of removal requests Incogni was sending me.
And that was the part that made it feel worth it, because I would never manually sit there and reach out to those websites myself.
For me, it's not about hiding my life necessarily.
It's just about choosing what I share and making sure that random broker sites aren't sharing the information I don't want out there.
So if you want help getting your personal information removed from the internet, they can't harm you.
If they can't find you,
You can use the code Isabelle and click the link in the description to get 60 off an annual subscription.
I have a lot to do today, you guys.
I have been neglecting almost everything in my life in order to complete this book draft.
It's due on Monday.
Today is Friday, so I still have a couple of days.
However, today I absolutely have to go to town to get groceries, because I literally have nothing here.
And yesterday all I ate for dinner was a potato because that was all I had.
And so I really need to go to town.
I also need to do laundry.
I need to clean.
There's like 5 million cups down in my studio.
I swear.
You can take on the world as long as you have a warm cup of coffee and maybe a cat too.
I can take on the world with my kitty.
Call me when you get close.
I'll call you when i'm like 20 minutes away.
Okay, sounds good babe, Oh.
So I planted some flowers and then also some fruit trees down by the house that I'm building.
However, there's not any water there right now, so I have to hand water.
I've been scooping it using a bucket and just from the river.
It's been actually kind of a nice routine that I have been doing.
You know, every other day I'll walk down there and water my trees.
I just really wanted to get something planted there this spring, even though there's not currently water.
So I was down here the other day watering my flowers and these are my bees right there in that box.
And I was standing here and all of a sudden a bee gets stuck in my hair and i like couldn't get it out.
It was like really in there and i was screaming and i like threw the water bucket and it stung me in the head.
I feel really bad for the bee because it was just scared, but i was scared and i could not get it out.
Like for the longest time i had to comb it out of my hair because it was so stuck.
Anyways, That happened like two days ago.
And I'm like a little bit traumatized from it.
Like every time I walk by now in their like flight path, I'm kind of ducking.
Or I guess I probably shouldn't duck.
Whatever.
It is around 4 p.m.
I just made a coffee.
My morale is super low right now.
I'm feeling really depressed about just everything.
I feel like the book's bad.
I'm wasting my time.
I'm trying to make it better and maybe I'm making it worse.
And I'm hoping that this coffee fixes my attitude.
What's up?
My brain is like melted.
Today was such a long day.
It was really nice.
A little awkward.
Yeah.
No.
Me neither.
I don't know.
19.
I'm working on the end, which is always a hard thing to write.
So I came out here and laid in the grass.
I thought that might help.
It's helped a little bit.
Feels good to just lay on the earth and breathe and look at the sky and the sun setting right now.
It is Saturday night.
I just finished the last chapter and I walked up to the top of the mountain to watch the sunset.
I brought this fermented hibiscus cider that I make to drink and yeah, I guess celebrate alone.
Something that I realized throughout this week is just how important it is to just start, whatever it is that you want to do.
You know, that thing that just you really love but just can't seem to find the time for.
It is just so important to just do it and give it everything that you have and start now.
Like there's never going to be this perfect time.
You know, I feel like we give ourselves excuses.
We think, oh well, later in the future, when I have more time and more energy and my life looks like this, then i can start.
But it is just so important to just start now.
I look back on the first book i wrote and it is just so awful and that's okay.
You know, when we first start something we're gonna be bad, and that's okay and i'm just so grateful.
I started and i did it and I've come really far and I'm proud of myself.
I feel like I experienced every single emotion during the course of this week.
I cried, I laughed, I cried a lot actually.
Just emotional, you know, writing from your heart.
People think fiction is just like made up stories but It comes from somewhere, you know?
A memory, a lived experience.
This wind!
Oh my gosh!
This is amazing!
I feel like it's cleansing my soul.
Anyways, you guys, thank you all so much for watching this video.
And yeah, I'll see you all next week.
Okay, bye.
