Exciting News at Alyssa Writes!!

I have a tattoo on my wrist that implores me to continue learning and another on my ribs that reminds me change is beautiful. They remind me to do the things that I’m scared of, and I’m scared of a lot of things.

I’m afraid to fail and I’m afraid to succeed. I’m afraid to put myself out there. Hell, I’m even afraid to travel. But this year has been a year of change and like I said,

I have exciting news…

I was scared to leave my job and start freelancing, especially in London where the cost of living isn’t cheap. I’m still afraid to sell my services and pitch publications. I was afraid to take this blog seriously.

But taking Alyssa Writes seriously really paid off when four months ago a representative of Porthole Cruise Magazine got in touch with me to write an article about Martinique. It’s a feature called Like a Local and that couldn’t be written by just anyone. Last month, I got this in the mail:

My familiarity with the place made this easy to write, though I belaboured over it because I wanted it to really represent the place I lived in for two years. And the pay. I never want to go back! You can read the excerpt here, but you’ll have to pick up the magazine to get all the local tips!

This is probably even more exciting…

As I said: London is expensive. And while I’m covering expenses, I’m not happy that most of what I make now goes towards paying rent. I like London but not so much that I’m willing to live paycheque to paycheque (which come very irregularly).

I’ve been complaining to my partner that I just want to leave, threatening to go back home to Canada where I can live rent free and bank all of my hard earned money. Instead of complaining I realized that I should just DO IT.

I’m not going to Canada, I’m going to my dream destination: Morocco.

Once my room is subletted, I’ll have nearly £800 to spend on travel.

I very nearly didn’t book this trip. I wondered what going to Morocco for at least a month would mean for our relationship when I have to leave soon because of my visa expiring.

Then I remembered what I said after Martinique, part 2: I would never not travel somewhere because he couldn’t. We didn’t explore the Caribbean as much as we could have or I would have liked to and I recently wrote in a blog comment that regretted not seeing more of the region.

Of course, I was worried for nothing. He understands and is making plans to take a holiday from work to visit me!

It wasn’t just that. I was also worried that Morocco wouldn’t live up to what I’ve built it up to in my head. But what do I know?!

Less exciting, but very happy making for me…

If you didn’t notice in the above picture, I’m on Instagram! I’ve had a BlackBerry since university (7 years, OUCH) and I am still a staunch BlackBerry fan. (I actually believe that Android and iPhone took BlackBerry tech, made some improvements and then collectively to decided to blackball BlackBerry (see what I did there?) by not making apps for it, forcing people to buy other phones in order to push them out of the competition. Just saying.)

Anyways, it was time for me to upgrade. My Curve took terrible pictures, it could only hold a charge for a few hours, and I couldn’t have apps like Instagram or Tinder (yes, I have a boyfriend; yes I’m on Tinder; no, we’re not in an open relationship; no, I’m not on Tinder to meet people; yes, I’m on Tinder for the hilarious conversations that will ensue when I’m bored).

So I did. And I’m on Instagram. Follow meeee!