Mid-Life Plot Twist: Why I Closed My Six-Figure Business to Pursue My Writing Dreams

On deathbed regrets, the perks of getting a lover, and how falling apart saved my life

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I wish I could say that writing has always been my number one desire in life, but I’d be lying.

My priority has always been self-sufficiency.

What’s driven all my choices hasn’t been the burning desire to put words on paper, to express my deepest emotions, or to move the hearts of a million strangers.

I just wanted to avoid moving back into my mom’s house.

That’s why I didn’t major in Literature or scrape by working as a waiter while betting on my ground-breaking novel.

Instead, I studied a fulfilling-but-employable degree—Psychology—and right after I graduated, I got a four-year paid internship in a Spanish public hospital.

Then I started an online business. The risk of losing money terrified me, so I kept it small: a team of only my assistant and me, zero spending on ads or affiliate marketing.

A respectable-but-not-huge email list of 7000 people yielded 160K in 2020, 180K in 2021, and 200K in 2022, selling only products priced under 300 euros and only in Spanish.

Oh, and—this makes me especially proud—I was NOT teaching others how to make money. I was selling psychology and personal development online courses to everyday people¹.

In a country where 30K a year means you’ve made it², I was, by every possible measure, successful.

The Hidden Lover in the Secret Apartment

The problem was, I’ve always wanted to write.

I know I said it was never my priority, but it has indeed always been a huge, almost toxic desire of mine.

Writing was the lover that wasn’t enough for me to risk leaving my cozy, convenient marriage, but whom I still kept comfortably tucked away in a discreet apartment because they were the only thing holding my life together.

My online business started with a blog and grew with email marketing. I’d write articles, sales pages, and daily stories to entertain my readers. I’d write courses, video scripts, and even a paper-based membership.

I was a successful psychologist because of my writing. My marital sex life was great because I was bringing my lover to bed³.

Unfortunately, my writing lover kept demanding more from me.

“I want to write fiction, Marina!” they’d say. “I have so many stories to tell!”

I tried to keep them quiet by writing on the side. It took me an embarrassingly long time, but eventually, I self-published two novels. They launched mostly to crickets.

I Almost Became an Overnight Success. In My Head. Then I Woke Up

When I was twelve, my dad’s wife told me, “It’s cute that you write. I have many writer friends, too, some of them very good. It’s just really hard to make it. You’ll probably leave it behind at some point.”

I refused to believe that at first, thinking that my writing success was waiting for me somewhere over the rainbow.

But if I were truly honest, my daily acts were not aligned with that success.

In This Is Us, Randall attends a parents’ talent show and tries to play the piano with disastrous results. Later, he admits that he didn’t really work on it and trusted instead that a three-minute movie montage would do the work for him.

Sterling K. Brown as Randall Pearson in NBC’s This Is Us. Photo courtesy of NBC.

That was me.

Don’t get me wrong—I put in the work on the writing part. I was slow, but I was thorough. I outlined, drafted, edited, re-edited, worked with beta readers, polished, and hired professional proofreaders and designers.

Today, though, there’s so much that’s needed to make it as a fiction writer. You need to promote, network, and hustle—and I was not doing any of those.

A part of me trusted that word of mouth would carry me to success. You’ve heard those stories, right? When people just can’t help but tell others about a book.

Or, who knows? Maybe an editor would discover my novel hidden in the depths of the Amazon charts, understand the utter genius of it, and publish it right away, with prominent placement in major bookstores.

Then, one day, after publishing my first novel, I got an email from Suma de Letras, a Spanish brand of Penguin Random House. They were interested in reading it to consider publication. I sat in my tiny, dark apartment in Granada, read the email, and my eyes welled up. “This is it,” I thought. “It’s happening.”

I sent my novel. They never replied.

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At some point, the minimal impact of my fiction began to wear me down.

One can’t help but wonder: why? Shouldn’t it be enough to do what you love? Dance like nobody’s watching? Take five years to write a novel and happily accept that only a handful of people will ever read it?

I suspect it’s not about fame or success per se. Today, Annabel Monaghan posted about making it into the NYT Bestselling List, somewhat embarrassed about enjoying other people’s validation.

I commented earlier that perhaps recognition is a proxy for human connection. Now I'd add that it's also about alignment: you're recognized because you've done everything in your power to become the person you were meant to be.

I’ve always wanted that. I still do.

But the thing about not giving yourself the space or the energy to properly pursue a dream is that you stop believing in your ability to get there.

“Maybe you’re not a writer, after all,” my mind would whisper. “Maybe you just don’t have what it takes.”

How I Tricked My Husband into Paying for My Very Expensive Hobby

Children came. We also conquered a certain degree of financial freedom. My nerdy husband’s profile as a developer and entrepreneur was rising fast, and at some point, we had more than enough money but not even close to enough time.

Since I wasn’t all that thrilled with my career, I closed my business to take the brunt of child-rearing and family management. Unfortunately, my second kid was a terrible sleeper, and I caught quite a bit of postpartum depression.

Once he started sleeping better, I realized that my depression was not only about sleep deprivation or solo parenting. It wasn’t about losing my identity as a professional woman or a public-ish figure either.

It was about watching my life's dream slowly dissolve before my eyes.

I had zero desire to go back to my online business. I couldn’t care less about my twelve years of training in psychology.

What kept me awake at night was imagining myself on my deathbed and thinking, “Well, I guess the writing thing didn’t quite pan out.”

I know, I know. Your deathbed is supposed to be about your loved ones; no one regrets not having worked more, etc. But I think your deathbed will also be about purpose, and meaning, and showing up through life in a way that’s aligned with who you are.

I’m a writer. I’m finally able to admit it. After all these years, I’m now ready to take my lover out of their modern but lonely apartment and marry them in front of my friends and family.

So, at some point, I ditched the mom guilt, negotiated more childcare hours with my husband, and got back to writing.

And guess what?

Slowly but surely, my depression started to lift. It’s still not completely gone, but I’m getting there.

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I suspect now that my brief stint as a SAHM and even my postpartum depression were the only way to trick myself into writing full-time.

I could have left a boring office job to pursue writing, but leaving my perfect online business that was helping people and allowed me to write humorous copy?

Who, in their right mind, would do that?

Leaving my business to take care of my kids, then becoming so depressed that only writing could save me… that’s a narrative I could get behind.

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There you have it, reader. This is my writer’s origin story—my mid-life plot twist.

There’s still a lot left to tell you: Why did I switch to writing in English? What's it like to have my husband support me financially? Why didn’t I link my two novels in Spanish?

Stick with me, and bit by bit, I’ll share it all with you.

Besos,

P.S. I’m calling this series Late Bloomer Logs, which is funny because one could argue I’ve already bloomed. I built a business! I helped people! I made money!

But I don’t think that’s what blooming means. You bloom when your actions are aligned with your dreams, and your dreams are aligned with the true desires of your soul.

This is the first time in forty years that I can say that of myself, which is why my blooming season, my spectacular burst into a million colorful blooms, is yet to come.

Nothing would make me happier than having you by my side.

Remember: It’s Launch Week in Books & Besos, and we are running the coolest giveaway! Like, share, and comment to win books and earrings!

1. This is what I’d call self-protective bragging: what I do to stave off the thoughts telling me that I’m worthless and have wasted my life. Please bear with me.

Also, I don’t have anything against people teaching others how to make money. It’s just harder to make a business thrive if you don’t do that.

2. I’m not exaggerating here, my dear overseas friends. You can’t imagine the dreadful state of the salary situation in Spain. Earning 30k a year, even before taxes, is seen as a milestone of career stability and success.

3. Remember: all of this is metaphorical. My husband and I have always had a healthy, monogamous, very vanilla marriage.