Interview with blogger, filmmaker and model Vicki Psarias
Vicki Psarias is a full time professional blogger, award-winning filmmaker, model, former magazine editor and writes weekly for Grazia Daily. She’s also a mum of two. We find out how she does it!
What’s your career background?
I’m a multi-award winning screenwriter and director with a TV Comedy in development with DLT Entertainment. I’m also a full time professional blogger and have been for over two and a half years now, running Honest Mum Limited with two blogs under its umbrella – Honest Mum, a lifestyle and parenting blog and its sister style blog, Mummy’s Got Style.
How did your career change after becoming a mum?
I thought I would be back on set directing, three months after a baby. I was pretty naive in retrospect although I suppose no one can prepare you for what is to come.
I set up my blog Honest Mum when my first child, Oliver, was 10 months old, but was back on set directing commercials when he was one. I was offered paid work for my blog from the get-go but decided only to monetise it a few years ago, after my second child, Alexander, was born.
It was becoming a booming industry at that time, and most importantly something I was utterly passionate about and which made sense for my family. I can’t think of another job that’s really levelled the working playing field for parents.
Your career sounds very glamorous and varied! How did you get started?
It is the most stimulating career – one day I’m reviewing a restaurant, the other the opera. I work with fashion brands, I create recipes, model for brands I love and I still get to direct, even if that’s directing myself for campaign films!
What’s your blog Honest Mum about?
It’s a parenting and lifestyle blog which features all that I am passionate about-family life, food, film, beauty and travel.
How have you grown your readership?
It grew organically and it helped that four weeks after starting I was a finalist at the BritMums in Brilliance Awards for Fresh Voice. That really gave me the confidence that people valued and enjoyed my work. It has grown hugely from there with my highest views reaching 100,000 thousand per month and growing.
Why do you love blogging?
It’s a well paid career that earns me more than full time TV directing and it works so well around my children. It’s a full time job that is flexible.
What’s your vision for Honest Mum?
I want to keep to growing the blog, making my readers happy, and of course adding to the small team at Honest Mum HQ(!).
I write every post myself, but I am not a one band woman. I have an incredible designer to keep both blogs looking their best and running to their optimum, my husband is a staggeringly good photographer which helps with shoots on weekends (he has a full time job in IT), and I have a PA/publicist who recently started to field through what can sometimes feel like a million emails in my inbox and help structure photo shoots and my schedule. And of course I couldn’t do what I do without my parents who help me with childcare.
I have also recently been taken on as a model and blogger by renowned agency Nemesis too-so there are lots of exciting things in store for myself and the brand.
You’re a writer, blogger, model and filmmaker – what’s your favourite role and why?
I can’t choose, it’s like asking who my favourite kid is! My love is multiplied not divided. I love that my skills are diverse yet they all work so well with the field I’ve chosen-blogging.
I never thought I’d ever not solely work as a film director so for me personally, it’s been great to leave my comfort zones, try new things and take on new challenges.
How do you fit your work in around being a mum?
Like all mothers it’s a juggle which sometimes I feel I’m winning at and other time I’m not. I’m lucky that we live in Yorkshire close to family who help and I take off a day a week just for my toddler.
Weekends are not for working either. We might shoot what we do as our life/work life is mixed but it’s about fun and switching off. I do work my socks off though but I stop at pick up and for dinner and bedtime so my kids have me and my husband to themselves. I do invariably then burn the midnight oil too.
Who inspires you?
So many people inspire me – my own kids, to be as great a mum as I can to them, a role model and confidante, my husband, ever-patient and loving, my family, and my mother and father who have built an incredible restaurant group (my mum was a university lecturer, my dad in management when they decided to set up the Olive Tree Greek Restaurants when I was two) and they are critically acclaimed Greek restaurants with a multitude of awards and accolades.
My friends are also a huge inspiration. I have a sisterhood around me of old friends I’ve known since we were kids to newer blogging pals, all who mean the world to me and help me to be the best woman I can be.
What advice do you have for other aspiring-bloggers?
I have five pieces of advice:
- Write from the heart and about what you would want to read yourself. Fight the fear that cripples all us creatives and don’t ever let it win.
- The more you write, the more you write.
- Connect online with others, twitter is a good place for bloggers, comment on lots of blog posts, be open, kind and honest online as you are offline.
- Be your best publicist too (promote yourself so others can discover you) and always be yourself.
- The world wide web is a big place, and there is room and a need, for us all.
You can learn more about Vicki on her website.
