Part 2: Why couldn’t I call myself a writer?
Even though I was being paid to write
I couldn’t say the words to myself, let alone out loud to others.
Back when I was a Guardian spokesperson in 2014, I worked alongside investigative journalists as part of a Pulitzer-prize winning team. My eyebags speak volumes.
I always thought I’d be content as a stay-at-home mum after having kids. After all, having time to myself at home has always been one of my favourite things to do.
But the thing about having kids is that they crack you open. And not just physically (sorry!). Once they arrive, out spills every single in-built physical and mental crutch you possess: especially those that you’d been able to successfully hide from the world – and from yourself.
And, very soon after having my first baby, I learned something pretty basic about myself: it wasn’t that I just enjoyed time to myself. I needed it. A lot of it. And often.
Let me spell out the obvious: when you have a baby you get very little time to yourself. Even at night. Especially if that child happens to be wired in exactly the opposite way to you and enjoys human company Every Waking (And Sleeping) Moment.
Six months into motherhood and, on the surface, I was having the best maternity leave I could’ve wished for. I’d lucked out with my local NCT group, my baby was thriving and I was getting plenty of support. But inside I was constantly exhausted, overwhelmed and overstimulated. I knew what I needed: I needed some time to myself. I needed to just be, with nothing but my brain for company. I needed to exercise my thinking muscles again.
I believed the solution was to return to work. But, as I mentioned last time, I knew that going back to my previous role as an on-call media spokesperson wasn’t an option. So I decided to search for a part-time job: one that I could leave at the office at the end of the day.
I sat at my laptop, navigated to Guardian Jobs and set the filters for any part-time role in London to get my job hunt off the ground. And there it was, the very first result: a part-time copywriter role for a charity that was hugely relevant to my career history.
I knew in my gut that this was the job for me. Yes, it was a huge step-down responsibility-wise. Yes, it paid much less (and I was in a hugely privileged position to even be able to consider this). But it felt right. Fateful, even.
I applied and I got the job. And, just after my baby turned one in the spring of 2016 – and at the age of 34 – I was finally being paid to do nothing but write. No more phoning up journalists who (I’d always convinced myself) didn’t want to hear from me. No more being called at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon by a Sunday paper wanting an urgent comment which would absorb my entire weekend. No more mopping up media crisis after media crisis.
This time it was just me and the words.
WORDS! STRAPLINES! CAMPAIGN NAMES! EDITING! IDEAS! SPEECHES! SCRIPTS!
STORIES!
Don’t get me wrong: no job is perfect. But, for the first time in my life, the work felt right. In fact, it didn’t even feel like ‘work’ most of the time. And maybe this was why – even a few years into the role – I still couldn’t call myself a ‘writer’.
More often than not, when asked what I did for a living, I used to say something vague like “I work in marketing for a charity”. But to define myself as a writer? I couldn’t say the words to myself, let alone out loud to others.
So, what happened? Covid happened, that’s what.
And, if having kids cracked me open, then the pandemic well and truly scrambled me.
More on that next time!
My debut novel, It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, publishes in August 2025. It’s a love letter to cheesy Christmas movies, British suburbia and nineties nostalgia. Click the book image to pre-order!
