24 Things I Learned in 2024: Writing, Travel, & Money

All PostsWho is Amy Suto?TravelFor Freelancers

Dec 15

January feels like a lifetime ago, in some ways: I started this year working remotely in Buenos Aires, Argentina — still one of my most favorite cities in the world. I’m writing to you from an airplane headed to Canada, where I’m going to meet a client for my last memoir ghostwriting business trip of the year.

This year I wrote and published The Nomad Detective: Volume I, my debut work of fiction. This short story collection is inspired by my travels, and was a blast to work on. I also started work on my debut romantasy novel—The Ash Trials—and if you want to sign up to get a free advanced reader copy (ARC) of that book before it comes out in exchange for an honest review, you can fill out my survey here.

I made six figures in my writing business, and was flown out to beautiful places like Vienna, Austria by my client to write their book and interview people important to them. So the perks of freelance memoir ghostwriting life? They’re still pretty great — even a year-and-a-half after I wrote my book Six-Figure Freelance Writer: A Holistic Guide on Finding Freedom in Freelance.

Recently, I became a Substack Bestseller with hundreds of paying subscribers. This was partially due to the launch of my wildly popular job board, and you can subscribe here to receive cool writing jobs straight to your inbox.

Overall? This was a year of constant learning and travel, and I worked remotely from all of these destinations this year:

It’s been an action-packed year, and every time I look back at everything I’ve been able to experience, I’m flooded with gratitude.

This year also came with its own share of learnings.

24 Things I’ve Learned in 2024 About Writing, Travel, & Money

Monsters are what we make them. I’ve overcome a lot of fear and anxiety in my life, and life gets better when I step up to the plate with my head held high. Our fears will take everything from us if we let them, so it’s important to separate reality from the way our mind can distort what’s true to keep us afraid and trapped.
Health is everything. I’m celebrating a full year of being in remission from my autoimmune condition! This year I kept up and improved my gym habit, continued to learn how to eat healthy and cook myself and my partner nutrient-rich whole foods, and got lots of sleep.
Caffeine is a drug—and it can also be a crutch. I gave up coffee and quit most tea-based forms of caffeine nearly six months ago and watched my anxiety completely disappear.
There’s no “perfect” time to write. I wrote over 100,000 in 4 weeks because I chose to make the time to write — and didn’t wait for inspiration to strike. I’ve hit a new record of words written this year, mostly because I sidelined my perfectionism and chose to do it tired and uninspired. And you know what? What I wrote on those “off” days ended up being some of the work I’m proudest of.
Our environments change us. Spending a day in Madeira, Portugal looked and felt very different from a day spent in Manhattan. Because I’ve been able to travel all year, I’ve seen firsthand how morning swims in the oceans or afternoons in a busy city really affect me differently. I’m still a city gal at heart, but I’ve also seen how important time in nature is for me to balance out the hustle of city life.
Picking your partner is the most important decision you’ll ever make. My partner Kyle has always been my biggest advocate. He’s constantly challenging me, supporting me, and cheering me on. Being able to grow with him and also be inspired by his ambitions and curiosity has been one of the brightest gifts of my life. I’m grateful I didn’t settle in my twenties when I was trying to figure out who would be the right partner for me.
Change happens when you slow down and regulate your nervous system. If you feel out-of-balance or constantly stressed, life will be very hard for you. When I was in a constant state of stress and anxiety, I ended up developing an autoimmune disease that was very costly and took 3 years to reverse and heal from. Giving up coffee and finding new frameworks and structure for my life and work helped immensely. So did meditation, charging more for my projects as a freelance writer, and doing more of what I loved.
Travel while you’re young. At first, I thought it might be silly to spend 4 years traveling the world instead of settling down and saving up for a house. In reality, the memories I’ve made while traveling in my 20s (and this year as I turned 30!) are so precious to me. It’s my firm belief that every twentysomething should have a “plane ticket” budget so they can prioritize having great experiences young. Now that I’ve turned 30 I’ll likely start prioritizing more of the “settling down” rituals of growing up, but they’ll be made even sweeter after I’ve spent so much time wandering.
Starting a Substack changed my life. It can change yours, too. Here are some of my tips for starting a paid newsletter.
My dream life was built on a foundation of freelancing. Being a freelance writer has allowed me to work remotely for myself, travel the world, and meet so many amazing clients and new friends. I wouldn’t have the level of time freedom and flexibility that I do now without it. To help give back to the freelancing community, I started my writing job board which you can access here to get new freelance jobs to your inbox.
Energy management is just as important as time management. This is why I organize my weeks into “growth weeks” and “maintenance weeks.” Or: some weeks I push on new projects, others I take a step back and clean my plate and handle admin work and lower-energy tasks while maybe incorporating more rest. This strategy was so important to helping me avoid burnout this year!
Showing kindness to strangers is an easy path to happiness. I remember nearly getting lost on the Tokyo subway, and an older man stopped by to make sure we got on the right train to the airport, saving us time and confusion. There were so many moments where strangers or new friends did something kind just for the sake of it—and I was so grateful to them for that. But it was the moments that I went out of my way to be kind to someone else that I felt the joy of passing on a small kindness.
You lose aura points when you’re behind on what you need to get done. Anytime I’m blocked on something or avoiding work I know I need to be doing, I feel my energy levels and motivation take a big hit. If I’m falling behind and getting overwhelmed, I know I need to lower the bar and clear the deck so I can catch up and get to where I need to be to feel good about what’s on my plate. In order to radiate the kind of calm, peaceful energy you want to put out in the world, you have to face the blocks that are keeping you from just doing that task you’re avoiding. Or, you have to restructure your work or your schedule if the way you’ve designed your life isn’t working with how many hours you have in a day.
Getting to the gym 4-5 times per week is a fast solution for a cluttered mind and tired body. I’ve often struggled with energy issues, which is why I’ve been such a die hard coffee fanatic all my life. This year when I quit coffee and caffeinated teas, I turned to the gym to help me increase my energy. While it sounds counterintuitive, it turns out that getting in a workout (even a short one!) can help banish the afternoon slump.
Everyone wants to be seen. Including me, which is why I write. But remembering this basic, human fact can also allow us to have more empathy for others. It’s also a core part of my work as a memoir ghostwriter. I love helping others feel seen in their stories and the messages they want to share with the world, even if they don’t have the time or writing skill to write their own books.
Life is better when you read more and scroll less. I’ve read nearly 80 books this year — which is 4x the number of books I read last year! This is in part thanks to rediscovering my love of reading after picking up A Court of Thorns and Roses and having my life changed forever. This is also because I set a 15-minute limit for all of my social media apps each day, which helps me stay off my phone and instead do something more restorative. I’ve read books, gotten in way more workouts, and done so much more writing since I stopped consuming so much social media content. I also watch much less TV, mostly because I can’t really find series I resonate with in the way I resonate with the stories I’ve been loving in the books on my shelves.
You can’t travel away from your problems. It didn’t matter if I was exploring shrines in Kyoto or enjoying an epic Turkish breakfast in Istanbul: travel can’t solve your problems. Only you can solve your problems, and this is a lesson that some digital nomads learn the hard way. I’m lucky that when obstacles appeared this year, I was able to face them head-on instead of running away. (Which is always tempting when there is so much to distract yourself with while traveling!)
Good things take time. I’ve been on a nearly 2-year journey to grow my Substack as a passive income source, and this year I hit a huge goal of $20,000 in annual recurring revenue (ARR)! It’s been a long time coming, and I’ve spent years building trust with my audience and readers, and helping connect them to the freelance clients who reach out to me through the writing job board. Having that pipeline of clients who reach out to me looking for writers has also taken years to build. There’s no real “quick fix” to getting to where you want to be in life. Being consistent with your efforts will get you far.
Staying focused is a necessary act of discipline. Especially if you’re like me and love starting new projects. But I’ve achieved the most — and reaped the biggest rewards — when I stayed focus on what really mattered. The more you pivot and change course, the more you’ll slow yourself down. Sometimes pivots are necessary, but they’re a detriment to your momentum if you’re constantly starting over rather than building on compounding efforts.
Working for yourself is the easiest way to be happy — if you can handle the work it takes to be a successful freelancer/solopreneur/entrepreneur. Working for myself allows me to live a “no alarm clock life.” I’m able to wake up when I want, do what I want, and take on only the projects that speak to me. I don’t work for a terrible boss. Instead, I’m picky with the clients I take on, and I’m genuinely excited to write their books for them. I don’t overload my schedule, which allows me to have more free time to eat healthy, work out, follow my curiosity, and write. I’ve been self-employed for nearly a decade, so this took time! Most people can’t handle the freedom and discipline required to find a sustainable life as a solopreneur/freelancer/entrepreneur, but if you can approach this life strategically you’ll reap the rewards.
Follow your passion. Don’t listen to the naysayers who didn’t. While there’s still a “strategy” and “trial-and-error” element to figuring out how your unique passion can turn into a sustainable life, I believe it’s mandatory to find your calling in life. I love being a writer, and returning to my fiction roots this year made me feel so deeply connected to the roots of my humanity. When I write, it’s like breathing. It’s necessary. All the times I was taken away from my art felt like death, and they warped my life in ways that made it unsustainable to live that way.
Home is where you feel safe. As a digital nomad who has been nearly nonstop traveling for the past 4 years, I’ve changed my definition of home to this one. I’ve felt safe and peaceful in so many different places — especially as I had the opportunity to travel with friends and my partner Kyle. Home is where you make it, not a fancy apartment or nice house.
So many writers have been brainwashed into writing “literary” things rather than things they love. Let’s stop looking down on “mainstream” books, okay? This kind of snobbery kept me from reading the romantasy genre, and had I just read something that was popular without looking to some establishment to put it on a New Yorker list, I would have fallen back into love with reading much sooner.
Write the thing that makes your heart sing and hit “publish.” Then do it again. This was another year that I wrote stuff and published it into the ether, hoping people would dig it. And… they did! But even if they didn’t, I’d still be here, writing. Because our art matters, even when it’s not perfect. Art is the vehicle by which we create widespread human connection, and it’s awesome. So how about you hit publish on that thing you’ve been hiding from the world, okay?