Diary of a Creator, April 2025 – Strategy

April is going to be a strategic month for me as a creator.

So far, I have been focusing on just showing up and being consistent without too much pressure. But I’m ready to take it up a notch. So, this month, I’m taking it a step further – little more effort into engagement, being a little more open to trendy templates (without losing my integrity) and starting to pitch too.

Wish me luck!

April 1, Tuesday

I started creating a carousel, feeling very good about it. But by the time I was done, I didn’t feel very good. But I posted it anyway, and as I expected, it did not do well at all – My joy toolkit.

April 3, Thursday

Newsletter day! I shared a story close to my heart this week – Did I heal or just swing to the other extreme?

Also, I got a message from a brand offering a barter collaboration. It seems like a very strong and growing brand. The products are right up my alley, and they were also expecting reasonable deliverables. So, I said yes!

April 5, Saturday

The Diary of a Creator, March ed. went live today, which I scheduled on April 1st.

[From April 1 – 8, I had a visitor. So, I took a break from creating]

April 8, Tuesday

Okay, I’m doing this! I have decided to try using viral templates to tell some of my stories in the hope of reaching a new audience. Because the growth I have been having is proving to be very slow.

Here’s what I shared today – how a decision I took 5 months ago has changed my life.

April 9, Wednesday

Posted a casual carousel today on mountain animals, wrapped up tomorrow’s newsletter, and even shared a quick note on Substack. Also finally promoted my newsletter on Instagram stories after ages—and got 5 new subscribers! Small win, big smile.

But most of my day was actually spent pitching a travel story to a magazine. Becoming a published travel writer has been a long-time goal, and after a few rejections in the past, this new opportunity (which I found through a community I’m part of) felt like a big exam. It’s wild how nerve-wracking it is—even when rejection isn’t public.

I procrastinated for a whole hour out of sheer overwhelm but still managed to send it out after four intense hours. Not expecting much, but the process itself left me proud. The story I pitched? It came together beautifully. Writing it reminded me why I love this work— though I lived the story, putting it into words makes it much more vivid and inspired to travel differently (a little more boldly) in the coming days.

April 10, Thursday

I couldn’t sleep last night! Ideas were overflowing in my mind all night, and I stayed up till 5 am outlining the next 5 scripts and blogs! They are far from publishing ready but damn that’s serious progress on content pieces I have slacking on for over a month!

It’s the Newsletter day, and a really vulnerable and honest piece went live today – My dirty little trick for putting myself out there.

April 11, Friday

I woke up to beautiful weather, only to have an internal battle over whether I should just chill and enjoy the weather or work. So, I enjoyed the weather and created a reel on this conundrum – When chilling feels illegal.

April 12, Saturday

Spent the entire day (5 hours) painting a dot mandala, and it made me so happy.

I also ended up posting a single post, as the target for the week was 4 posts. It was a quick thing, but it made me question what I was doing and if this was the direction I wanted to go in. Four posts feel like too much, and the engagement is only going down.

April 13, Sunday

Woke up to this today:

It’s a really good milestone! In fact, hitting 250 around the first quarter means I’m well on track to hit 1000 subscribers by the end of the year (which is my goal).

But there are some days in the journey when even a milestone like this doesn’t really make you happy. Today is one such day.

April 14, Monday

Went on an unplanned trip today to McLeod Ganj! But still managed to create a simple but very interesting reel. I saw something so cool yesterday, thousands of insects erupting from the land and starting to fly. Since most seemed not to know what it is (including myself), I researched, found what it is and made a reel on the go!

And just as I expected, it has much better numbers than the reels that took me hours to create!

April 15, Tuesday

I dropped a collaboration email to a big brand that I love.

April 16, Wednesday

I followed up for the second time with the magazine pitch, and don’t really have much hope for it. This is a disheartening and draining process, even as I try not to take it personally.

Today was a productive day, though. I scheduled tomorrow’s newsletter and published the second blog of the month – A Detour into Art in Bir.

April 17, Thursday

Newsletter day – How I stopped exploring and started experiencing. Thank god for the scheduling feature! In the night, I got another bout of creativity and wrote the next two newsletters! Some days are just fire.

Wish some of this fire could get redirected to creating reels and growing Instagram.

But hey, I have also managed to set up my YouTube channel.

I saw a creative writing workshop by The Bombay Review, and even though it costs a bomb for 3 hours, I think it will help me with pitching to magazines. So, I’m thinking of signing up.

April 18, Friday

I had one major task today – to create a media kit. And boy was I so motivated to do absolutely anything else. I even quickly whipped out a reel on What no one tells you about digital nomad life.

But I pushed myself when I was at the point of exhaustion and made the first draft. So grateful that I now have someone to send it to and get their input. Will try to wrap it up by the weekend so that I can start pitching from Monday.

April 19, Saturday

Got a message from a very interesting property in Dharamshala asking for a barter collaboration!!!

I was planning to head to Dharamshala and the surrounding places! This couldn’t have come at a better time, and heck, I got approached for two barter collabs this month! That is crazy. It means I’m getting on the radar, right?

We are going to have a call tomorrow for further details. Let’s see how it goes!

On the other hand, I added more stuff (content examples, DMs and comments) to my media kit. I’m not fully happy with the design, so I’m sending it to my friend for some feedback.

The number of nights I’m working past midnight on these things has been growing… Phew.

April 20, Sunday

I had a call with the stay, and they agreed to host me for four days and provide two meals! This is glorious! I’m super-excited to explore this.

Have been breaking my head over pitching for magazines, so I signed up for the Creative Writing Masterclass about getting published that happened today by The Bombay Review. It went on for 3 hours and 45 minutes.

My takeaway: Trying to get published for travel writing isn’t worth my time today when I’m already breaking my back over content creation, blog and newsletter.

Finalised the New Roads New Skills media kit.

April 23, Wednesday

Finished tomorrow’s newsletter and scheduled it.

April 24, Thursday

Last newsletter of the month is live – A date night with work: When I have to but don’t want to work!

After weeks of putting it aside, I finally got over my hesitation to film myself for the next bunch of reels. Not fully happy with it, but at least I have filmed 3 reels.

Published the third blog of the month – The Art of Mindful Storytelling: Lessons from a Classroom in the Mountains. And I also started re-designing the website today.

April 26, Saturday

I so did not feel like it, but I still edited the posted the reel as it’s long overdue. And I don’t even like the reel to be honest. But anyway, the first reel of Chapter 2 of New Roads, New Skills is live!

April 27, Sunday

• Created a media kit to pitch collaborations with stays.
• Finished re-designing the website.

April 29, Monday

I posted a reel on one of my favourite places I have been to – Deer Park. I think it came out really well!

Monthly Reflection of a Creator

I don’t know why every time I try to be strategic about things, I end up adding too much to my plate! That’s far from being strategic! The same thing happened this month, the more I told myself I will do, the less I was able to do than usual.

So, I shut down this whole plan I made in just a week. I’m going to stick with 2 – 3 reels a week. No forceful carousels, no name-sake reels to hit the target. My thoughtful storytelling has started to pay off with good collaboration, and I’m not going to ruin this moment!

Had some amazing wins this year! Three barter collaborations happened this month! These are all amazing milestones and I’m ready to keep going.

Instagram

Substack