I Wish I Never Wrote This Blog | Hit the Rock Bottom At 30

Hey there,

I am back with a blog I wished I never wrote. By now you know I have completely stopped posting here (to be precise my last blog post is dated 02/04/2024)- which once was my favourite space. I’ll tell exactly why I stopped writing here further and why I hit the rock bottom at 30.

So, what happened? Why did blogger Shraddha Rane disappear all of a sudden for such a long time? Why is there no connection between you and I – which once was a near and dear one? 

Well, this is certainly going to be a long blog because I have a lot to share. If you’ve ever loved my work here or read my books, then do read this till the end. If you’ve never known me, I think this blog is a summary of my LIFE. 

Okay, I guess this one’s going to be more of a retrospection of my writing journey and less of a self-help kind of a blog.

And the funny and alarming thing about retrospection is it comes to you at your lowest point in life.

Yes!

I hit my lowest point as soon as I turned 30. Social media, sometimes, does influence you, see.

To know why I am broken in my 30s, let’s rewind a few years of my life and peep into all the major events that took place – sometimes consciously and most times accidently.

But before that let me tell you that I’ve started writing this blog straight from my bed after visiting the washroom for the 19th time. Yes, I’m not kidding here. I’m suffering from severe food/water infection. But writing this blog seems like the most important thing on the earth right now.

Am I sounding funny? Consider it as “No”.

I still wonder why people retrospect their entire life’s events when they’re not in their best health or rather when they are in the worst mental and physical health.

Dear reader, initially when I started writing this blog in my head, lying restlessly on my bed with an aching tummy, the blog was named – “Shraddha Rane – an epitome of failure”. Yeah, it sounded horrifying just like my diarrhea condition.

But when I actually got a little better and physically active, I decided to go for a little subtle title.

Let’s divide this blog into some crucial years of my life:

1. 2018

I’ve been writing blogs on various topics since 2011. But I took it up as a serious thing in 2018. I took up a course where I learned the nuances of blogging. Created this website of mine shraddharane.com and hosted it on Godaddy.com.

And, yes, it’s a paid website where I pay for this domain and hosting every single year. On the other hand, readers get to read the blogs for free.

To begin with my professional writing journey, I published 2 blogs every week, with a word count of minimum 1000 words. I was quite disciplined. I used to put on a timer before hitting the keyboard. This improved my writing and time management skills.

And this diligence led me to get hundreds of subscribers and thousands of viewers every day. I was also proud of myself for converting some non-readers into avid readers through my blogs.

The same year, I was doing great at my IT job, but it sucked the energy out of me. I desperately wanted to follow my passion full-time and hence I gave up my IT career with my parent’s support.

I left the company with a beautiful farewell and an appreciation certificate from the client side for an exemplary support. I surely was doing great at it but if I would’ve waited in the job, I wouldn’t have achieved what I did in the next upcoming years.

2. 2019

2019, a year that taught me lot because I was all on my own. All my friends continued working in the IT industry and I – the rebellion had decided to follow my passion. Clueless, broke, and confused, I spent first 3 months to figure out the writing world.

I gave tons of interviews for a content writer job. Back then I didn’t even know the difference between a content writer and a copy writer. All I knew was I loved writing and that’s what I was going to do for the rest of my life.

My only portfolio back then was this website of mine. That’s how I approached companies and finally got a job in a startup.

I was paid exactly half the amount of that of my previous job in IT. But that didn’t bother me much.

Slowly, I explored the different terms used in the content writing industry. Learned digital marketing and how it beautifully worked out for businesses.

Simultaneously I kept dreaming about becoming an author one day. A published author. And accidentally I overheard a beautiful love story of a 50-year-old woman at a family wedding.

I simply started writing it without knowing how and where to publish it. It was hardly a 2500 words short story.

Nobody’s going to publish this – I thought to myself. And that’s when I came across the Kindle direct publishing program. And bingo!! Without giving it a second thought I published my first short story book “Mrs. Rao” in e-book format.

I did everything by myself – writing (of course), designing the book cover (initially), formatting it and finally publishing it.

As soon as it was out my friends read the book on Amazon Kindle and loved the story and my storytelling skills.

I loved reading the reviews I got on Amazon.

Mrs. Rao: An Old Age Love Story eBook : Rane, Shraddha, Yadav, Nithya: Amazon.in: Kindle Store

As people weren’t familiar with the Kindle app and how to read an eBook on a mobile phone, I explained everything in detail through my Instagram posts.

Everything needed a lot of efforts and time. I gave in both.

3. 2020

It’s quite difficult for me to explain 2020. Many of us have lost our loved ones in the pandemic. For me, it was my parent’s rebirth. I wrote another eBook – “Home Quarantined” on my COVID experience and have documented every single detail in it. It was a completely raw story of my personal life experience but to my surprise the book received a lot of love.

Even my senior manager from my IT job had read it and left a review on Amazon. I was definitely on cloud nine.

Meanwhile, I had also sent my manuscript of my first paperback book to publishers and was waiting for their response.

I heard back from 3 publishers, and I chose Mithaas Services for my book to be published with. Again, I had put in a lot of hard work in understanding the book industry. I had taken up courses online to learn how it worked.

Figuring out everything on your own can be intimidating.

But back then I had my best friend with whom my writing journey felt a little less overwhelming.

Unfortunately, because of the COVID my publisher thought it was risky to publish a paperback book, and I had to settle for an ebook. I was heartbroken but certainly didn’t want to wait to get “published”.

My first book “Monday mornings done right” received tremendous love. I felt elated giving all the interviews on Instagram Live. If it wasn’t the pandemic, I think all of it would have been offline.

Nevertheless, I was finally a published author. My best friend thought, “It’s done. You have achieved your dream”.

Little did she know that writing and publishing a book is just 30% of the publishing process. 70% lies in marketing of the book.

I did everything organically to promote my book. And mind you it is the toughest part. That’s when my mentor said, “Find some marketing agent to market your book because it has the potential to become a national bestseller”.

But I failed to find one. And slowly and steadily, Monday mornings done right died.

An artist never gets tired of creating art but creating content around it does exhaust him.

4. 2021

2021 came with a sudden wave of sorrow which I still am trying to deal with. I lost my best friend – the only person who understood my dreams even better than me.

I was broken, lost, and devastated. For me, writing was the only way out to deal with the suddenness of her death. I wrote continuously for 23 days and soon had completed my second book – “My Brave Lady”. That’s the only way I could keep her alive even today.

Readers cried while reading my book.

But again, I failed to market it well. New writers presume that their publisher will help sell their books but that’s not true. Slowly, My Brave Lady also withered off in thin air.

In the second half of 2021, I got married and my world turned upside down. I’ve written a lot of blogs of how marriage changed my life (like every other girl), so I won’t be repeating here. All I would say is I rushed into this marriage to fill in the horrifying void that the death of my best friend had brought in.

10 Things Women Realize After Marriage That Disappoint Them! – Shraddha Rane

1 Lesson I Learned In 2021 That Disappointed Me AF! – Shraddha Rane

Did you notice something here? Despite all the events that happened, I never stopped writing here. I kept coming back on and off. Wait for 2024 to know why I stopped writing here and how I was such a big fool.

5. 2022

This year changed my life 360 degree but in the most beautiful way. I made a bunch of friends in the colony I lived post marriage. Basically, they were my husband’s childhood friends. Not a single day went boring or monotonous after these beautiful people entered my life. And without me knowing it, they had become my life. I have spent the best days of my life with them.

Slowly and steadily, I was adjusting to my married life, too. I loved how the first year of my marriage unfolded – from confusion to clarity, adjustments to acceptance, and from a stranger to a member of the family.

That’s when I wrote my 3rd eBook and again published it through Amazon KDP. First 365 Days in a marriage is a collection of 365 poems, each one describing a day in my married life and how it all progressed.

But again, something came in the way, and I failed to promote this book, too.

Gradually, I started feeling left out as a writer. The only thing that kept me connected with my readers (and with my inner self) was this blog of mine. I kept pouring my heart out here, irrespective of who read my blogs.

I guess when I write in here, I am the truest to myself. Maybe that’s the reason I was so desperate to write this one.

New Relationships And Much More… – Shraddha Rane

…And The Hangover Shall Stay For A Little Longer! – Shraddha Rane

6. 2023

You know despite the diarrhea weakness, I am writing a few words every day in the hope of completing this blog on Gudhi Padwa – Marathi New Year. It’s an auspicious day for all the Maharashtrians and I want to make a fresh start. I want to somehow come out of the rut that I’ve created in my mind and eventually start believing in myself again. But unfortunately, I will not be able to. Festivals = a lot of work, you see!

I needed to analyse what went wrong because I felt like life was slipping off my hands swiftly. My mind kept echoing with these words constantly – “Shraddha Rane, an epitome of failure”.

From the year 2023, I slowly started moving away from my goal. Yes, I made excuses. Yes, I didn’t prioritise writing. Yes, a lot of things distracted me.

But to be honest, sometimes it’s just difficult to sit peacefully and write something for yourself after a hectic 9 to 6 job and a family of 5 to feed.

I was drained, exhausted, and yearned for some rest. 2023 got tougher with one of our friends shifting to abroad leaving behind a big void. Gradually, everybody started moving out of the town as “Work from home” was slowly being called off.

The One With The Most Emotional Goodbye! – Shraddha Rane

7. 2024

In 2024 the major change that I went through was quitting my 9 to 6 to follow my passion for writing full-time. Definitely, not an easy decision, but my husband made it quite easy for me by standing tall by my side. He was and still is with me as my biggest support system.

But to be honest, it took 6 months to actually accept that I was no more an employee of a company. I was all by my own. That was the goal after all – to be my own boss.

It takes a lot of time to adjust to change. And I took my own sweet time.

I somehow wanted to revamp my writing journey. Not knowing how to get back to where I had lost myself, I decided to talk to my mentor. I wasn’t surprised when he said, “Start making videos on YouTube. Create your community. Blogs and books are dead. Nobody is reading them. Create community on YouTube.”

As usual, I believed in him. The good thing I did was I started my YouTube channel. I always thought it would be impossible for me to talk in front of the camera for a long time. Let alone making long form videos for YouTube and managing every single thing single handedly. And writing scripts for YouTube was far different than writing blogs.

But I did. I learned how to film a video, the gadgets used, how to edit a video, background music, fonts to be used, and the list was never-ending one. I was improving with every video. And soon, I had become quite confident in my speech. I loved making videos on YouTube. I enjoyed every part of it – scripting, shooting, editing, everything.

But deep down I felt empty. Something always felt missing. People loved my videos. They commented on my videos. Most of them messaged me personally and said I was doing a great job. But I wasn’t happy.

8. 2025

I kept experimenting and sulked about why I wasn’t happy with my YouTube channel. I felt sad for the slow growth and felt defeated every time I lost a subscriber. Sure, I wasn’t consistent in posting videos due to endless events going on in my personal life, but I tried my best to come up with a video whenever it was possible. Until one day, I just decided not to post anything online.

I hated how inconsistent I had been and felt ashamed to put anything on the internet. Until one day, I realised I haven’t written anything either. Before the guilt could eat me up, I decided to work on an unfinished short story which I had started a couple of years ago.

To my delight, I hadn’t forgotten my skill. I read what I had written and quickly sat down to continue.

It merely took me a week to complete the story. I was proud of myself. If you really want to do something you, do it irrespective of anything.

But this time I was a bit skeptical about the story as it was an unconventional one. So, I decided to ask a couple of friends to read before I self-published it on Amazon.

It was a goosebumps moment for me when I got their feedback. Apparently, it was one of my best works until now. “Someone I Loved So Much” was my 4th eBook. My husband read it in one sitting – biggest achievement for me.

I did promote it for a few days but soon stopped posting about the book online. This was the first time in my whole writing career that I didn’t see good book sales. Even my friends did not buy the book. I was heartbroken but I knew I cannot blame anyone. It’s their choice after all. Many years ago, I had read this phrase – “If you want to know who your true friends are then write a book and ask them to buy”.

I felt even worse when one of my family members asked me if there were any upcoming discounts on the book. “It’s an 89rs book damn it”, I thought and politely replied, “No”.

Well, I know I am being stupid here. Maybe a lot of other things that’re going on in my life right now have made me shallow and depressed.

Or maybe it’s the 30s thing.

To summarise the confusion, lately, I am not in my best mental health. I’ve been feeling lonely, dismissed and sad for months now. And the worse thing is I cannot explain why. I did take up therapy but that just helped for a while and soon the anxiety was back.

Worst was yet to come. I cut off all connections with my friends and preferred staying alone. I avoided deep conversations. I stuck myself to the TV. I stopped reading books. All of this only worsened my mental space.

And then when I was down with diarrhea, I realised how and when I lost touch with myself and my readers. The retrospection helped. All this slowly began when I stopped writing blogs in this favourite space of mine.

Someone says stop writing because nobody is reading, and I just go for it. BIG BIG BIG mistake of my life. Because you cannot forget the space from where you have come.

I might have been doing great on YouTube but that did not mean I forget my roots. I am neither a Youtuber nor a content creator. I am a writer. How can I forget that?

When I was writing this blog, I realised that I had compromised on my principles all this while and that took me away from my soul. The reason I started this blog was to make people read and I was doing the exact opposite for the past one year.

That’s not me.

If you like doing something you should make sure you’re doing it. I have preached this all my life and sadly forgot it myself.

Anyways, it’s better late than never.

I know what to do next. And I shall do it.

Meanwhile if you are still reading this long blog, thank you so much for hearing me out. I owe you a lot.

Do comment down if you feel like talking to me, because, honestly, I need it more than anything else right now.

Bye bye, take care! See you soon!

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