Be Bold: A Guest Post by Noraly Schoenmaker
Noraly Schoenmaker’s life blew up after she found out her partner was having an affair, and things were never the same again — in more ways than one. Hopeful, funny, insightful and introspective, Free Ride is a special story about one woman’s season of life. Read on for an exclusive essay from Noraly on writing Free Ride.
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Free Ride: Heartbreak, Courage, and the 20,000-Mile Motorcycle Journey That Changed My Life
Free Ride: Heartbreak, Courage, and the 20,000-Mile Motorcycle Journey That Changed My Life
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Hardcover
$26.99
$29.99
By the YouTube sensation with two and a half million followers, the inspiring account of a young woman who, in a moment of personal crisis, embarked on an epic, transcontinental motorcycle ride—and along the way found a new sense of purpose.
By the YouTube sensation with two and a half million followers, the inspiring account of a young woman who, in a moment of personal crisis, embarked on an epic, transcontinental motorcycle ride—and along the way found a new sense of purpose.
I always wanted to be a writer. As a six-year-old, I would write my first sentence in the school newspaper: “I want to go home.” But then I chose to study Biology and later Geology at University and my writing career was put aside. It would take another 8 years before I gave writing another shot and started a blog, that I named “Itchy Boots.” I tried to become a travel writer and wrote informative blogs about the top 10 things to do in Delhi, India. Soon I found out that my heart was not in this kind of writing, and I switched to video making. It was years later, after I had been sharing hundreds of episodes of my motorcycle adventures on YouTube, that Dutch publisher Luitingh-Sijthoff reached out to me with one question: talk about a book?
At first, I wasn’t sure what I would have to write about. Didn’t I already share all my stories on YouTube? What else was there to say? At the same time, it felt like an opportunity I shouldn’t let slide. Perhaps now the moment had finally come that I could fulfill my lifelong dream of becoming a writer. I told the publisher I would try to write one chapter and if I managed that, I would write the whole book. As soon as I wrote one sentence, the rest came flowing, and I realized that was an entirely different side of my story that I never shared on video. My deepest thoughts, fears and what I had always considered to be the private part of my life, suddenly appeared on paper.
My book is my personal story and how I dealt with a major life changing event. I would never suggest that riding a motorcycle around the world, full-time, is the solution to everyone’s problems. But what I do hope that readers will take from my book, is that following your passion and decide how you want to live your life should lead you – even if that means you are living an unconventional life. Be bold enough to not fit in, and not having to conform to what society expects from you. Because I can tell you now – society doesn’t expect women in their thirties to be single and ride solo around the world on a motorcycle. Ultimately, when we are old and frail – would we rather think: “I am glad I lived my life in a way that was expected of me” or “I am glad I lived my passion and did what made me happy.”