The resignation letter sat in my drafts folder for three weeks before I hit send. Three weeks of staring at those two paragraphs that would officially end my relationship with spreadsheets, quarterly projections, and the peculiar anxiety that comes from watching conversion rates like a hawk.
Today marks exactly one month since I walked out of that glass-walled office in Vologda for the last time. The spider plant didn’t make it through the transition, but the leather notebook survived. Funny how the things that seemed least important turn out to matter most.
Everyone keeps asking: how do you leave a stable marketing position for writing? The honest answer is messier than most people want to hear. You leave because staying feels like wearing a perfectly tailored coat that belongs to someone else.
Since October, I’ve written four short stories about cultural displacement and identity. They’re published here on the blog now. But I’m also deep into something longer, a collection about the beauty industry and the secrets people reveal whilst I paint their nails.
Each morning now, instead of opening analytics dashboards, I open a blank page. Some days I write about the woman at the coffee shop who orders the same complicated drink whilst scrolling through job listings. Other days I sketch scenes from my nail studio, trying to capture the stories their manicures tell about their lives.
I’ve filled almost eighty pages now. The immigrant stories feel complete, ready to collect into something. The beauty industry project is messier, still finding its shape. But both exist because I’m finally giving myself permission to create without measuring against predetermined metrics.
The hardest part isn’t learning to write fiction, it’s unlearning the habit of treating everything like a marketing campaign. Stories don’t need to justify their existence through data. They just need to be honest.
My savings account has an expiration date, and eventually reality will require more than notebook entries and nail appointments. But for now, I’m allowing myself this: the luxury of creating something that matters to me, whether or not it makes commercial sense.
Posted from my kitchen table, where stories grow slowly and without permission.
— Writer Julia Zolotova
