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Give Yourself Some Grace
October 14, 2025
I started my internship here at the end of January and, until very recently, lunchtimes would consist of me chipping away at the mountain of work that was my thesis. I had only been given six months to conduct my research and write the 10,000-word report – the biggest project I’ve ever attempted.
As I was already juggling several competing priorities, I knew two things: I needed to put in consistent effort, and I needed to start immediately.
I would be lying if I said that I put in the same amount of effort every single day without fail for six months. Some days passed without me even looking at the document, and some days I could only spare an hour. The latter included every Wednesday — as work and study for my other classes took up the rest of my time, the lunch hour here was frequently the only time I could dedicate to my thesis on those days.
I’m a perfectionist to my core, and I saw these days as a failure. This mindset could have derailed my efforts entirely: all I could see was that I was unable to be consistently productive every single day, which was discouraging given the standards to which I was holding myself.
However, the broader picture shows a much more consistent effort. I didn’t consider that two or three unproductive days per week meant four or five days where I did make much-needed progress. I also didn’t consider the impact of just one hour per day: whilst not a lot of time individually, the consistent use of my lunch break on Wednesdays totalled 24 hours of work by the time I finally finished my thesis. It was the accumulation of these small but repeated efforts that ultimately got me across the line.
My point is if you’re writing a book or undertaking another big project, don’t pressure yourself to make a huge amount of progress every single day.
Making your standards more realistic – adjusting your expectations from writing two thousand words a day to two thousand words a week – might better facilitate long-term consistency.
I’ve found that missing one or two consecutive days with perfectionistic standards more readily led to inconsistency, overwhelm, and the abandonment of projects. Producing the same amount of work and effort every single day is challenging when you’re already juggling other priorities and whatever else life throws at you.
Give yourself a bit of grace; you’re not a machine.
Zoë Forbes
Editing Intern
The Toxic Tendency
July 8, 2025Procrastination.
My worst and constant companion.
We coexist. Living in a toxic, symbiotic relationship I can’t escape from.
… but do I even want to?
Perhaps, the hug of procrastination feels safe, even if his crushing grip hurts me in the end. It’s possible, stepping into unknown tasks feels riskier than the burn of delaying them. Or maybe, it’s the deep-seated fear of never being good enough that sends me running back to his suffocating arms.
The truth is: it’s a mix of all three.
It’s hard to call yourself a writer when you shy away from your Word doc and keyboard at any given chance. It’s hard to say you’re dedicated to your art when he’s always there, tossing up enticing distractions that send me straying from the unfinished page and blinking cursor.
And It works. He never fails to stop me from fulfilling the one thing I’m meant to do.
Write.
It’s ironic, to love a thing so much, and yet find it impossible to begin. And the question I end up thinking is, how can he possibly spoil something that I choose to do?
That answer is easy.
Fear.
Fear of judgement. Of failure. Of putting myself out there and getting turned away.
It’s those choking fears that make procrastination like me so much. He can smell the doubt and uncertainty clutched close to my heart and he feeds off it.
Without the fear, procrastination would starve, and I’d be rid of my freeloader forever.
Which brings me to my next questions. How? How do I stop my fear? And how do I stop him?
And what I’ve discovered is this.
I can’t.
No matter how good I get, no matter how many stories I produce, the fear of never succeeding, never amounting to anything, is always there.
Showing your work to someone is like baring a little piece of your soul. Hoping they won’t look at it, scoff, and pound it into the ground.
And that’s where procrastination makes himself present. He knows trying can lead to rejection, to pain, to failure. And with every degrading whisper, he convinces me not to keep going. And sometimes…
I let him.
He’s only trying to protect me after all.
But at what cost?
The key to getting better is to not let my fears stop me. No matter what could go wrong, no matter if no one likes my work. You’ll never know what could have been if you never tried. And I’m so close to breaking through the mental barrier that I’m not enough.
But he’s still there.
Awaiting me with open arms.
Hoping I’ll run back to him like I always do.
I hear his voice in my head telling me, You’re no good. You’ll be a failure. Stop trying.
And too many times I give in, sustaining him with belief I am inadequate. Fueling him with my insecurity.
So where does that leave me? A writer who doesn’t write. A storyteller with no stories. Do I continue to exist stagnantly? Never moving towards my goals or achieving my dreams?
That’s not what I want.
What I want is to write.
Because I love it. And that’s what should matter.
As for the rest of it. The fear, the doubt, the worry…
Him.
It’s all noise. What matters is my love of creating. And I don’t want to stop. Not for anything. Especially not for him.
So maybe I can’t rid myself of my fears entirely, but pushing through them to continue moving forward is a good start. And the more I do it, the less procrastination will hinder my progress.
Procrastination.
My brain’s way of avoiding pain.
But you don’t get anywhere without a little suffering.
And maybe acceptance is the first step to getting rid of him for good.
Anais
Work experience
Work Experience
May 27, 2025
Doing my Year 10 work experience at Busybird has inspired me more than I could have hoped. With 80s music playing constantly in the background, it makes the atmosphere even more homely and inviting, although much to the horror of Les, I only got the ABBA songs correct.
After spending the whole morning of my first day stressing about everything possible going wrong, the moment I stepped through the bright orange doors, the first thing that greeted me was Oscar the labrador waiting for attention, and the robot vacuum beeping loudly because it was stuck on the neon orange carpet in front of bright blue walls with shelves stacked with piles of books. Talk about colourfully chaotic.
Before I came to Busybird, I was just a high school student that was guessing how to do pretty much everything in her book and just hoping for the best. Now, I’ve learnt many things that I know will help me to become more successful and grow as a writer. I now know how to edit properly, as well as the sheer amount of time it takes to go through every page in detail and fix every little mistake I’ve made as I’ve poured words onto a page in a hurry of ideas without thinking about how they sounded.
When you’re fifteen and your dream is to be an author, most people don’t have much faith in you. They tell you to ‘find a better paying career’ or ‘just pursue it as a hobby on the side, but to find a real job that will actually get you somewhere in life.’ (No, Dad, I still don’t want to be a doctor.)
Most people don’t understand that not everything is about how much something pays, but it’s about doing something that matters and makes you feel fulfilled at the end of the day. Because yes, I could have a job that has security and pays well, but I’d always feel a lingering sense of regret about choosing something safe over doing something that I’ve known I’ve wanted to do since I was thirteen and wrote the first draft of my book in a black binder with a torch and a Harry Potter pen in the middle of the night.
Sure, sometimes staring at a blank page waiting for the words to come to you can be overwhelming, but when you look back on your manuscript once it’s done, you’ll be thinking, I wrote this. I actually wrote this. And that will be worth the time, the effort, the fighting with yourself not to give up for something easier. Because even though sometimes it can feel impossible to be able to put all these words in your mind onto the page and make them sound good, you’ll find yourself glad you took the leap when you get to type out the last words and look at the worlds you’ve built from your imagination.
As someone who’s always been obsessed with reading, I suppose it’s really no surprise that I ended up desperately dreaming of being an author. I’ve also learnt the hard way how much effort it takes to get yourself noticed in a world where there’s book after book to choose from, and sometimes nothing feels unique anymore, like all your ideas have already been used up by other people. So you need to do it better.
That’s why you need to keep going, why you can’t give up. Because one day in my dreams, someone may be walking through a bookstore, browsing shelf after shelf, and maybe, just maybe, my book will be the one they choose to take home, and it will change their life as much as writing it did mine.
And then it will have all been worth it.
Georgia Milner
Year 10 Work Experience 2025
My Week at Busybird
May 16, 2025Staring at a blank page, writing a blog about … anything?
At first, I was expecting Busybird to be a normal publishing business, very formal, very bland.
When I walked in, those assumptions melted. It was messy, but it was also unique. The decorations hanging up high, the dog, Oscar, greeting my arrival with a few licks and growls. I quickly learnt the names of everyone, and some of the interns present.
My experience here at Busybird so far has been a lovely one.
The environment is nice, friendly and inviting, often welcomed in by interns or Oscar. I was immediately caught off-guard by the sheer amount of stuff lying around. From the stage at the back of the building, and the fidget toys, Rubik’s cubes, to all the photographs and books, and then back to all the old cameras on the shelf. I didn’t think it was possible to have this much stuff in one place, but that’s mainly why I love it.
Busybird Publishing proved to be an easy challenge to get used to, (aside from Les asking me, “Who sings this song?” which I got used to quickly, maybe because he asked me so many times). I fit right in, mainly because I shared similar interests with Les, or had a good conversation with Kev; I could express my opinion on a certain topic.
Of course, then there’s the blasted kettle in the kitchen. I’m nearly positive that thing is possessed by a demon that stops me from making a tea. Why does the kettle have four modes? Why do all the modes have every single type of tea except for the one I want to make? WHY HAS IT GOT A SEPARATE BOIL BUTTON?? It drove me crazy for a good six minutes or so until I realised I just had to click the power button. Simple mistake, but I wasn’t satisfied.
My tasks were pretty simple. “Edit this” or “proofread that” and “social media post this”. I quite enjoyed them, even when certain things gave me five trillion headaches consecutively. It was a challenge, and I liked the work I’d been assigned.
Meeting all the interns was fun, especially since there was so many. They were all friendly and hospitable, and it was great to work alongside them.
So, as I said before, a lovely experience, as well as getting fired every single day of the week for spilling a little tea, a joke which Les has been dragging ALL week.
I give my thanks to Les and Kev, and of course Oscar the dog, for the opportunity to work here.
Jaxon
Work experience student, May 2025.
Get Digging
March 18, 2025
Too many writers sit around waiting for inspiration to fuel them through the course of their writing.
It just won’t happen.
Inspiration is such a small part of the writing process. The rest is hard work.
The reason so many writers fall away from their projects isn’t because they’re no longer inspired – or they’re not receiving a series of inspirations, like a string of firecrackers detonating one after another – but because they just don’t know their project well enough.
Regardless of your writing methodology, before you sit down to commit to the act of writing, you need to know what you’re writing about. This doesn’t necessarily mean you need to know every word and idea. Some things will develop organically. But you need to have an intimate familiarity with your content.
If you’re writing a novel, you need to know your world and how it functions. If it’s a contemporary story, jot down all the characters and locations you think you’ll use. Give them brief descriptions and histories. You’ll find this now begins to inform your narrative and contributes to shaping the plotting. If it’s an otherworldly story, you need to know how that place functions.
If it’s an autobiography, a biography, or history of some sort, jot down all the events you’ll cover in a chronology. Determine what the story’s going to be. It’s not just a recount of events. It might be about a triumph over illness, or building a business, or migrating and establishing yourself in a new country. These are just examples, but they demonstrate the story that’ll intertwine through that chronology and give form to the structure.
If it’s a nonfiction book that’s about some sort of methodology – e.g. how to reinvent your life – bullet-point all the things you’ll cover. Look at those bullets. How many of them are main topics? How many of them should be subjunctive of the mains? For example, I might jot down, “meditation”, “breathing exercises”, “self-care”, and “walking”, and then realise instead of having four separate chapters, I should have one chapter called “Self-care”, and put “meditation”, “breathing exercises”, and “walking” as things I’ll cover in that chapter.
If you sit around hoping you can improvise it all the way, and/or that inspiration will continue to inspire, you’ll be waiting around a long time, and grow discouraged.
Your idea is a clue to a treasure you find sitting on the surface of the earth. You’ll have to do some digging to find the rest.
So get digging.