Introducing me

It is Monday 3:41 pm and I sit by my work desk to write this newsletter to you. Hi, nice to meet you, new subscribers, I am Winifred Liam.

Photo by 𝓴𝓘𝓡𝓚 𝕝𝔸𝕀 on Unsplash

It is Monday 3:41 pm and I sit by my work desk to write this newsletter to you. Hi, nice to meet you, new subscribers, I am Winifred Liam. I have just finished my lame attempt at shooting a video where I talk about my experience as a Project/Product Manager. My God, it is so cringe. I do not even have words for how my mouth moves or the way I smile with all my teeth showing outside. I am scared of talking in front of the camera, I do not like my voice very much, but this is me doing it like that, as it is. 

This might not be the intro you are used to, heck this isn’t even the intro I planned in mind but here we are so we might just get used to me doing things on the whim, if not I get scared and delay it. 

Back to the intro, I am Winifred Liam, I am a writer, project/Product Manager, tech enthusiast, certified chef, and first daughter of the clan. As the first daughter I might come across as someone always telling people what to do, lol, sorry it comes from a good place. I am one to first take the stick off my eyes before I remove the log in another. Simply put I always wish people would look at themselves first before they speak and criticize people. Why? Because we come from not-so-perfect backgrounds, so, it helps to give little grace to people journeying in the open.

Now, my work. I worked as an editor and writer for Prazzle Inc. for two years, covering art, photography, and design. I interviewed so many popular artists and told their stories authentically. I worked on three magazines during my time there, and it was a swell time. I’ve worked with Marmalade as well as the content writer for the newsletters, guides, and interview experiences with African artists. 

I am a freelancer on Upwork, but from time to time things took me out of the platform. I started there as a ghostwriter, telling the stories of people who were healing, entrepreneurs who wanted to establish themselves in their fields, fictional fantasy romance stories, and children's stories. I ghostwrote children's stories for companies children's storytelling companies like Little Sparklers Land and Kunda Kids. Although Little Sparklers Land did not later launch, my works are pretty much sitting somewhere collecting dust in some Google Drive files. 

I am also a copywriter, currently, I work for a fashion brand. I have worked with over 27 clients as a freelancer on Upwork, Fiverr, and LinkedIn combined. I now only ghostwrite and edit books on request, as it was stressful for me and the rewards were little. Even articles for brands started tiring me out, so I took a break from that as well. 

As a tech enthusiast, I took numerous courses and I was good at them. I pivoted to Project and Product Management since it allows me to utilize my skills in UX Design, cybersecurity, cloud tech, IT Support, foundational coding, project management tools, and the like. I love that I have found this spot for myself and am currently seeing that transitioning is hard.

However, transitioning is needed, I have grown and I need a role that feels exciting, with the rewards equally satisfying. I love work, I love looking for ways to save money, and I love dollars. I still offer email management and copywriting to entrepreneurs with a personal brand, businesses, CEOs, thought leaders, and authors. 

On Substack, I love writing for myself, us, and anybody who comes across me and relates to the words I put out here. In my personal life, I love to cook, have a good time, plan my weekends, and binge-watch K-dramas—my favourite remains Goblin and Arthadal Chronicles.  

I love books and reading. I have a shelf full of them. I love fiction more as it teaches me to put myself in various scenarios and see my ways of reacting to them. I learned not to judge through them, I learned people can be weird, and that love can be real in the forms it comes. 

I feel like I am forgetting something, which is often true whenever I am given the spotlight to talk about myself. I love adulthood too with all of its chaos and tribulation. I only didn’t prepare to meet so many people in adulthood, lose friends, remake them, lose people I love, or them lose. It is one notion I cannot understand well. Like what do you mean I won’t see Ope till whenever we see, or see Aristotle anymore because he liked me and now our friendship is dead? Or see Lisa because she committed suicide. What do you mean Esther now has a baby, and Monica died from an abusive marriage this year and I won’t see her again? What do you mean my friend supports Tinubu and all his cohorts? What do you mean you think men are superior beings? What do you mean you married a man who hits you in 2024? What do you mean Faridah is in Scotland with her husband and now on baby two? It is weird, the nuances around friendships, but I live with all of its aches and blessings.

I have a company VVynletters Ltd. I registered it in July this year. We are all about maintaining that human voice and experience in your stories. It doesn’t matter what story you want to tell we’re here for you. However, I developed cold feet with launching it because I lack social capital maybe, and I need to learn YouTube and video editing well. Bruh, I see limitations everywhere and I am tired of it. Same time I want to do it scared you know, make video content, see myself talking, sit with my voice, and be familiar with it. 

I wanted my core offerings to be to help medical students with their medical school applications and help them tailor their stories to fit each school application because I have gotten 100% success rates from school applications.

All my clients got admissions and will begin med school year 2025. I checked my competitors and shrank myself wondering how a girl from Nigeria, Africa would brag that she helped secure admissions for US-borns. Fear and self-doubt cripple me at this stage, but trying my best to come off it. I want to get more comfortable talking about the numerous good words I’ve done.

From grants, admissions, brand story, brand voice, ghostwriting as therapy–people told me their stories in recorded forms and I turned them into stories immortalizing their experiences for their families. It is beautiful the work I do but I am still chopping audacity to put myself out there and make this schmoney.

Enough about money. On food, I love plantains, chicken, and mangoes, which are my favourite fruits in the world. My favourite animal currently is the capybara. I used to fancy parrots, but now it is just capybara energy everywhere, even on my IG bio. I am learning how to swim–it is embarrassing to almost drown in a children’s pool. Haha, but I will emerge a winner. I’m learning how to drive. Life skills, life skills, clap for me. 

Oh, I am also an author with a few published and several unpublished manuscripts lying around because I need to work and most times passion does not pay the bills. So this is me trying to make it in time so passion shines. I’m also a failed plant mom of many plants and a failed cat mom of two cats—they ran away to return every two weeks and I locked them out. If you like the streets best stay there. 

I’m tired now because I get the feeling I get when you try so hard to convince your interviewer that you merit the role but they doubt you for some reason and now you’re just tired and done with it. 

I am tired of writing about me for now. 

A warm welcome to my space. This is a bit of Winifred Liam of Every Now and Then. I hope you pick one or two from this very self-centered post. Tell me one thing about you to help me not feel like I just finished talking to myself, lol.

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It is 4:52 pm and I’ve just finished writing this piece for you! Thanks for reading.