I enjoy reflecting on the past year before starting the next one and this year was great! Here are my favorite things from 2019!
Family: I love living near my parents. My sister moved to London to study at the London School of Economics, but the rest of us are all a short cab, crosstown bus, or subway ride away. My family has been so supportive of my book. My mom edited the entire book before I sent it to Simon & Schuster, my dad gave me edits on the finance chapter and has helped with marketing, and my sister read an early draft.
Friends: I have an amazing group of friends. One of my best friends in the entire world lives half an avenue away. I live with another of my best friends. I have a group of five close friends from my sorority in New York City and we have fun traditions and holiday celebrations. I know it can be difficult to make new friends as an adult, but I’ve been fortunate to also make so many amazing friends from networking, blogging, journalism, and grad school.
Book: One of the highlights of the year, and my life, has been writing my first book What Next: Your Five-Year Guide to Life after College. I was walking from work to the subway on July 19 when I saw an email from Julia, an acquisitions editor at Adams Media, asking if I’d be interested in writing a five-year guide for life after college. I immediately responded and said “YES” and we set up a call with my literary agent Leigh. We aligned on the vision for the book right from the start and then I had about two weeks to send the first draft of the proposal which included a sample chapter and introduction and the table of contents. We went back and forth a bit to get it right and I got an offer on August 28 and the first draft of the contract on August 30. I started writing on September 2 and handed in the first draft of the 60,000-ish word manuscript on October 23 then did the first round of edits about two months later. I have always loved to read so it’s been so fun and exciting to see how books get published.
Forbes: I started working at Forbes shortly after graduating from Columbia. I was a contributor for almost three years before then and had met some of the team, but I got to know so many more people from being in the office every day. I worked on some of my favorite Forbes lists, including The Forbes 400, 30 Under 30, and The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women and wrote dozens of articles.
BBG: I just finished BBG Round 3 and now I am on Round 4. I definitely don’t have abs, but I feel stronger because of BBG. It also works well with my schedule because I can work out at home before work instead of having to schlep all my stuff to the gym before commuting.
Elana Lyn: I was able to transition from law to marketing and journalism because of blogging. I started a blog shortly after graduating from college because I missed having a creative outlet and felt lost in my career. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do for my career so I started interviewing women to learn about their career paths and writing about the personal and professional topics my friends and I discussed as we navigated the first few years of our post-grad lives. My blog helped me land a book deal — the acquisitions editor at Simon & Schuster reached out because she read my blog. I’m so grateful for my corner of the internet and for everyone who reads Elana Lyn. I didn’t write as much this year as I’d like because I was in school then working and writing my book, but I hope to write more in 2020.
Reading: I have always loved reading. (My parents used to call me Belle.) I need to read every single night before bed to unwind and fall asleep. I read 28 books this year and my 10 favorites were: Small Fry, The Last Time I Saw You, Becoming, One Day in December, The Woman in The Window, Bad Blood, More Than Words, From the Corner of the Oval, An Anonymous Girl, and The Wife Between Us.
New York City: Every single time I go for a walk in Central Park, I think about how happy I am to live in New York City. I love that there is always something fun to do, whether it’s going to a museum, seeing a show, trying a new restaurant, or spending time in the park.
Home: I used to go to networking events or out to dinner almost every night after work, but then I started Columbia and had a lot of night classes and then I started writing a book while working full-time. Even though I was either in class or working, it has been nice to come home, have a healthy dinner while watching a TV show, and then get back to work. I also live with one of my best friends so it’s nice to have movie and TV show nights at home without planning anything at all.
Columbia University: I graduated from Columbia Journalism School in May. I became a much better journalist because of Columbia and the tight deadlines and late nights gave me the confidence to write a book!
