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Hey Reader,

I look at my smart watch, calves burning. No, not burning; on the verge of popping. Red hot, bulging, glowing like a cartoon police light and threatening to burst all over the track, leaving a sticky trail of goo in my wake.

My calves are now, in my imagination, the most sculpted muscular appendages on the face of the Earth. Michaelangelo would have gladly created a statue of them in marble to sit alongside David.

In reality, of course, they’re just my calves but with actually less mobility because of the aforementioned popping and glowing.

SO HOW IS THAT WE’VE WALKED LESS THAN 2KM?

There is no way that this much pain can result from hiking less than 2km.

Of course, about 600m of those 2km were UPWARDS. On giant slate steps made for giant people.

On Sunday, me and Joe and a bunch of our friends hiked up Cader Idris, expecting a moderate walk. Hilly, yes. Steep, yes. Around 12km, yes.

But turns out we accidentally the toughest hike up the mountain. One of the toughest in Snowdonia. Just over 960m in total ascent, actually.

Was it worth it?

Yes. The views were magnificent.

Would I have done it had I realised it would be this hard?

Maybe. I definitely would have eaten a better breakfast and taken more sensible food. My magic apple was great but it wasn’t enough.

I think sometimes it’s a good thing to not know how hard something will be. With all the obvious caveats about not attempting parachuting without training blah blah etc.

Certainly for someone who hikes a fair bit and is pretty fit, accidentally ascending the hardest route is rewarding and worth it.

Look:

So, yeah. I’ll always tell people the truth about doing hard things like writing a book. It WILL be hard. It WILL be scary. You WILL want to set fire to it and everything around it at least once. Hitting publish will be terrifying. Promoting and launching it will be VERY hard work.

I can tell you all these things and you still will not really know unless you’ve done it, and I think that’s a good thing. Few enough people write great books as it is and if we all knew, we’d write even less of them, so ignorance is definitely bliss.

It’s also MASSIVELY worth it. Because I also can’t really describe how fantastic it is to write, publish, and hold your book in your hands.

I have two spots for Book Breakthrough: Unlocked sessions for the remainder of May, and I’m booking VIP Days for June and July now.

If you’d like one, you can book using the links above or you can reply to this email with any questions.

TTFN,

Vicky 🫡

p.s. if you haven’t experienced awe recently, I fully recommend you get some awe into your life at least once a week. For me, this week was standing on top of Cader Idris and gazing out over Snowdonia.

p.p.s. Know someone who might enjoy this email? Please forward it to them and get them to sign up here.