I’ve been writing since I was able to reach the ancient electric typewriter which was perched on an old desk in our damp study. They say it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert on something. Well, in the film of my life the training montage will be of me spending my weekends scoffing Bovril on toast and drinking Ovaltine, while bashing out story after story on that poor old machine, which was about the size of a block of flats.

I think I put my 10,000 hours in. Because this was before the internet, on demand TV (we had three channels), mobile phones and all the other shit that kids these days have to entertain them. Nope, when I was young and the weekends felt endless, you made your own entertainment. I kept myself busy with writing, reading and obsessive research. Pretty similar to my life now in fact.

Despite sounding ancient (the paragraph above being a choice example) and actually being ancient (I was born in 1978, you do the maths), I am yet to feel like a proper grownup, hence the title of this blog.

I’d been saying I’d be a writer “when I grow up” since those early days of story writing, but, after finishing my degree in Creative English, I hot footed it over to Ibiza where I lived and worked with my then boyfriend. We returned to the UK two years later, pregnant with son one (surprise!), and a couple of years later son two came along (surprise!). Oh god, surprise is right. I had gone from the crazy cool, laid back lifestyle of the White Isle, to being a frumpy old stay at home mum. I loved my kids like mad, but man, that was a tough transition for someone who said they’d never have kids (I’m of course very grateful for the little gits now). 

It was around this time in 2010 that I first began very small time blogging to get some form of writing (and excitement) back into my life. A couple of years after that, I became a single mum (not the blogs fault), with a supportive and involved baby daddy, but a single mum nonetheless. I largely quit blogging a year or two later. I had lost my lady balls.

I tentatively returned to the world of work as a dinner lady at my sons’ school (“Oi you, eat your sandwiches before your crisps”), then a 1-1 teaching assistant at the same school. I was gradually rebuilding my confidence, did a lot of dating, some travelling, I grew. When it was suggested that I add QTS to my degree and go into teaching full time I panicked and decided that it was now or never, and hastily became a freelance copywriter.

Since that first day of sitting at my desk, no clients, no clue really what a freelance copywriter even does, I have in four years managed to develop a profitable freelance copywriting business. Even growing my skill set to include web design, graphic design and other digital creative stuff, I also fulfilled a life’s ambition and returned to uni to do my master’s degree (in Digital Marketing), which I completed the year I turned 40.

Proper Grownup has been my brainchild for the past 4 years, just niggling away at me. I’ve been itching to get back into blogging and have a safe space where I can say fuck and bugger as much as I like, not really give a shit about grammar and bang on about the minutiae of my life to anyone who might be interested in reading.

Part memoir, part self-help book, part social commentary, Proper Grownup will make you feel much better about giving your kids McDonalds for dinner, watching Real Housewives, not listening to your mum’s advice and playing Candy Crush while you take a shit (or anything else that you do that you’d rather not admit in public). I don’t have much of a filter and don’t see the point in being anything other 100% authentic. I hope you enjoy reading it.

Feel free to connect with me on social, or head over to my professional website (no swearing there) for info about hiring me.

Thanks for reading!