I love being a freelancer, but despite its many pleasures and rewards, it can be enormously tough, a role where you lack the checks and balances of a ‘proper job’. There’s no boss to tell you that you have too much accumulated leave and need to take a holiday or you’re too sick to be […]
Tag Archives: Writing
Normally I wouldn’t presume to write a list like this, but I did it for a blog post on a book tour a while back (and for which I have, annoyingly, lost the link) and the material seemed worth sharing so I have reworked some of it here. Hope you find it helpful! 10 Things […]
I rediscovered this old piece the other day: I wrote it for the Strictly Writing Blog and although, thankfully, my life has moved on a lot since then I think it still stands up so thought I would share it here, also. I hope it helps someone. What happens to your writing when your life […]
I am reading Brené Brown at the moment – rereading, to be honest – and it has got me thinking a lot about her key topics of shame, fear and the ‘hustle of worthiness’. How they apply to freelance and creative lives in general, and to my own experiences, as a working-class woman with a […]
“Be a disciplined half-ass” I don’t have a life motto, but if I did, this quote from Elizabeth Gilbert’s book on creativity Big Magic might be a good candidate. At first, it seems an odd thing to lay claim to. Surely, in the words of that other sage, Ron Swanson, we should avoid being a […]
2018 has been a funny old year – for most of us, I think. The world has felt more than a little nuts (remember when we were all just sad lots of famous people were dying – ah, good times) and it’s impossible not to let that bleed into your everyday life. If you, like […]
Happy New Year, one and all: I hope that, whether you celebrate or not, you survived the season intact. I actually had a big family Christmas this year – my first ever! – and it was a delight. My cousin and his wife (who is actually an old school friend of mine, also) hosted the […]
