I’m an over sharer, an anxious mess, an ex publishing professional, a screenwriter, short story writer, personal essayist and a novelist (The Lamb & more soon).

This is where I come to pass and receive nervous notes and be transparent about my writing and my wobbles. It’s part diary, part scrap book, but mostly a collection of extremely nervous notes scribbled down.

I don’t have a paywall (bar one handwritten letter I write to paid subscribers every year), but if you’d like to support me, there’s a paid subscription option with a couple of small perks.

Subscribe now

Trigger warning for feeling perceived and potentially my most honest/raw diary entry yet.

On the last day of June, I finished a draft of my next book and sobbed over my laptop because writing it has been the most difficult thing I’ve done in my career yet. It’s a piece of work that’s taken me to some dark places and made me see the world differently. It’s made me pick at scabs that weren’t yet healed over (big up my therapist for helping me work through my trauma history and my writing career). It’s sometimes made me anxious that no one will care about this strange little book because of some of the weird things that happen in it. And of course, I’ve done all this, for the first time, with an audience now my debut novel is published.

It’s an audience and readership who have loved and hated and middled my novel. Most people are very normal about those opinions, written their reviews online and engaged in good faith debate - and btw, it’s vital in a post-media literacy society that good faith debates about our writing take place so people can analyse and be curious and ask questions about the world. But, on the day I handed over an early 2025 draft of my second book, only a few week or so after my first book published, one person sent me an endless ream of straight jacket pictures because they despised my work and wanted to freak me out. Another person, a few months later, sent me a long rambled message about how overrated I am (lots of colourful descriptions in there too to boot - I think they fancied themselves a writer). Another person this month, just after sending my latest draft to my editor, sent me a weirdly intimate instant message to tell me I would be a better writer if I didn’t untag myself from their hate review and that her criticisms specifically would help me grow as a person. And a few months ago, when I noticeably took a step back from social media, someone had figured out what flat and street I live on and let me know via my DMs (and not in a cute way) because of something completely silly I’d posted about going to a local cafe. Most of these occasions happened while I was still working as an assistant full time, so I didn’t even really feel like a proper writer, but the reality was, even though I was still hustling a 9-5, I wasn’t writing in isolation anymore. I was part of the capitalist machine (Argh hellscape). I was visible.

This is exposing: all these strangers with instant access to a one on one conversation me 24/7. All these voices sliding into my DMs (the same place I exchange silly reels and pet photos with my closest friends). All these opinions (with straight jacket attachments and more). Over the wall of noise, I sometimes can’t hear my own voice anymore.

People often cite writing your second published novel as one of the most difficult books of your career and I’ve been trying to understand why that might be over July. Perhaps this month was the best month for me to reflect on this question simply because I’ve got a draft in my rear view mirror, short story writing in my immediate future and a feature horror script out on submission at the moment. It’s a sensitive time and reflective time and I’ve mostly felt like a raw open wound that won’t scab over tbh.

It dawned on me, when I was speaking to another friend who is writing what will be their second published novel and struggling with the magnitude of the task, that deep down, neither of us feel like we belong here and that nothing can prepare you for the growing pains that happen between writing your novel and the day it’s put on shelves: that is the day you stop being a person who likes to write and start being a public commodity.

So here is my July writing update:

Day one of July, I pressed send on an email to my editor; subject heading: A BOOK DELIVERY! Because the manuscript finally starting to feel like a real fucking book - plot threads are twining together after years of trying to weave everything together, character arcs are more composed, and the finer details are slotting into place. I said to myself, pressing send, there is promise of a really, really fucking good novel here - and I’ve heard if you say that three times looking upon a mirror in the dark, eventually a really good book will come to haunt your career.

The July that followed was creative. I looked for story in everything: I made cyanotypes and planned the next round of books I wanted to bind. I started writing a new short story for soon to be announced anthologies, and loved going to book events. I outlined four feature films and sent them out into the universe too. Look at that, Luce. You’re a real fucking writer. You’re doing it. Stop refreshing your social media feed for a dopamine hit and hit the desk. Write. Write until your fingers hurt.

Being a writer isn’t always Publisher’s Market Place announcements and chaining yourself to your desk, or having flashy social media moments (of which, I’ve had my fair share). It’s not even reading those messages that slide into your DMs late at night (the good ones and the bad ones) because “that means you’ve made it if people give you that sort of attention.”

Being a writer is worrying late at night and mornings with flickers of small joy between the deep bouts of clinical anxiety. It’s more failures than you let on and rejections people don’t see, always. It’s worrying you won’t live up to your last piece of writing, but simultaneously worrying the you’ll be perceived. It’s going to the shop and listening in on an argument when you know you shouldn’t - not because you’re necessarily nosy, but simply because you’re genuinely curious about human beings, their choices, the consequences of them and how they communicate with each other on this tiny rock in space. Being a writer is watching a sea gull snatch a man’s fish from his fish and chip box, and then trying not to laugh as the man then chases the sea bird down the beach, despite it soaring into the sky. Being a writer is watching an old woman cry on a park bench alone, and asking her if she’s okay. Getting anxious about climate change and trans rights and Palestine because WHY IS NO ONE DOING ANYTHING? It’s recognising when you need to recluse and go inside yourself. It’s seeing your friends, and eating cake and using your spare seconds to do meaningless but deeply human creative stuff because being a writer is not all that you are.

Being a writer is experiencing being alive with the rest of the world. We just choose to note it all down.

Outside of writing, I’ve been filling my time with:

• Hanging out with my lovely Figgy (who only slightly hates it when I try to get pictures of us together).

• Making cyanotypes. So many cyanotypes. All the cyanotypes.

• Scribbling casually.

• Playing dungeons and dragons. (Literally total party kill - horrifying).

• Staying up all night to watch England defeat Mexico in a nail biting football match. (What a fucking match by the way).

• Regretting it the next day.

• Lamenting my early youth and my ability to pull all-nighters with no consequences.

• Prepping multiple book binding projects for the summer (and finishing them because I couldn’t wait).

• Resting, sleeping, eating good food and trying to be mobile despite the long covid making it increasingly more difficult.

• Climate change impacted my period. It came late with a vengeance of pain like never before. (Note to self, put on a brave face and try to go back to the doctor about whatever the fuck is going on with your uterus).

• Reading really excellent books.

• Meeting one of my closest friends in real life (after YEARS of online connection and talking every day via WhatsApp).

• Being happy for my friend’s successes and being able to cheerlead them so they can sparkle the way they deserve.

• Actively trying to document my life more in a way that isn’t superficial (AKA for myself) by starting a diary for the first time since I was little.

• Getting a GORGEOUS Brazilian edition of my novel (see above).

• Reading poems to remind myself why I write.

• Watching football with a gorgeous friend, late at night in a hotel room.

• Searching for new inspiration.

I’m an over sharer, an anxious mess, an ex publishing professional, a screenwriter, short story writer, personal essayist and a novelist (The Lamb & more soon).

This is where I come to pass and receive nervous notes and be transparent about my writing and my wobbles. It’s part diary, part scrap book, but mostly a collection of extremely nervous notes scribbled down.

I don’t have a paywall (bar one handwritten letter I write to paid subscribers every year), but if you’d like to support me, there’s a paid subscription option with a couple of small perks.

Subscribe now

This month, for the first time since I was thirteen, I decided I would keep a secret diary. I write in it every time I’m battling negative feelings that are too big to tangle with a (ir)rational mind alone. I tell myself the thing I desperately need to hear in that moment, I try to untangle why I feel strange, I try to understand what horrible thing from my past is reaching into my future. Every entry is titled for when you feel (insert big, scary emotion here) and, in the middle of July, I found myself wanting to share a small excerpt of this one with you.

for when you feel small

July 14th, 2026

Having bad feelings is important. Here is why:

If you already had everything you ever wanted (eg. all the love you were starved of in those years of your life you don’t talk about, and the acclaim and success and creativity and stability of an amazing career), you would be numb to the joy of every single one of those beautiful human experiences. Nothing would drive you forward. You’d drift, with no momentum, and live an existence that feels like still water - which is common in deep caves and abandoned buildings; a place where no life really grows or prospers (besides the deadly, brain-eating bacteria that slowly turns your mind to mush).

Instead, life should be like the sea. It should be unexpected and filled with crashing waves and tides pulled out, only to be then drawn back in again. There should be frightening rip tides. Life. Ecosystems upon ecosystems of possibilities.

Feeling small is frightening and filled with unpredictability, but lots of amazing, beautiful and important things are small. Butterflies. Hobbits. Atoms. Cells. Lady birds. Plant seeds. Plankton that feed the great big whales that sing their songs and roam our deepest seas. Even dandelion wishes are only beautiful once they have been blown into small fractures so they can float across the wind and land on someone’s favourite jumper. And, my favourite, one million tiny, individual, impossibly small grains of sand form the beaches our ocean’s most beautiful waves rush to.

You feel small. That is okay. Doesn’t make you any less remarkable.

I’m an over sharer, an anxious mess, an ex publishing professional, a screenwriter, short story writer, personal essayist and a novelist (The Lamb & more soon).

This is where I come to pass and receive nervous notes and be transparent about my writing and my wobbles. It’s part diary, part scrap book, but mostly a collection of extremely nervous notes scribbled down.

I don’t have a paywall (bar one handwritten letter I write to paid subscribers every year), but if you’d like to support me, there’s a paid subscription option with a couple of small perks.

Subscribe now

When I tell people I used to work in publishing, they get romantic images of me burning the midnight oil surrounded by manuscripts, but the truth is far more ordinary.

I worked in a department called ‘Trade Sales’ which is the B2B side of publishing that works with the creatives to sell your books into high street chains and independent bookshops. It’s a vital piece of the publishing puzzle that means books can actually reach their readers.

In my role, I was responsible largely for working with booksellers and maintaining good relationships with bookshops, working with and tweaking sales copy for books, managing trade marketing campaigns and consulting on publishing plans.

This came extremely handy when I got my book deal because I’d worked under the hood. So many authors around me had no knowledge of what happens once they hand in that last draft of their book. It appears in bookshops months later, but there’s a lot of hard graft that gets a book from being a word document or a PDF and into those window displays.

One of the goals of my Substack was to offer some much needed transparency when it comes to publishing, so here is an A-Z on publishing terms that will hopefully give you a glimpse under the hood. And if there’s any burning questions you have about all the trade sales stuff, just ask below and I’ll whip a post 🫶

AI Sheet: NOT artificial intelligence. AI Sheet means Advanced Information Sheet. It’s sometimes referred to as a TI sheet (title information sheet). This is what the sales reps use to sell in and is usually one side with all the information about your books into (from technical meta data around format and ISBN, to author info, blurbs, story info). This typically also includes KSPs (key selling points) and a sales targeted promotional headline.

Blurb: an endorsement from an author which can be used on the cover and in the copy used via online retailers (see metadata).

Copyediting: this is one of the last edits you do before your proof pages and proofreading. You’ll sense check for factual inaccuracies, grammar and spelling issues and any last remaining issues.

Developmental edits: bigger story edits that usually shape character arcs and narrative beats.

Earning out: earning out is where you’ve earned back the sum total of your advance through book sales. It’s harder to do if you’ve got a higher advance and usually cited as a big achievement for any author.

Frontlist: this term is used to describe titles that are yet to be released (opposed to backlist, which is books that have already been published). On some occasions, a book can be both a frontlist and a backlist title because the hardback will have been realised, making it a backlist, but the paperback edition of the same book is yet to be released and is considered frontlist.

Galley: This is a US term which describes an advanced copy of a novel which is given to press, booksellers and readers in order to build up hype and get good sell in (see Subs for more information about sell in). This edition of the book is not final and there will be errors in the text.

H: N/A

ISBN: this is a 13 digit number assigned to your book. Used to track sales, warehouse inventory etc.

Jacket Copy: sales copy featured on the jacket. This includes the title and the author name. Sometimes, it includes a tag line or an author endorsement (see blurb).

Key account: a big sales account (think Wholesalers, Waterstones, WHSmiths, Forbidden Planet). These are bigger chain retailers that will hopefully order larger unit QTYs of your book.

Lead title: you’ve hit the jackpot baby. A lead title is the book that usually gets the six or seven figure advance, prioritised marketing, publicity and award coverage, enormous marketing spend. These are books that usually make the Booker Prize list or the Women’s Prize List, often the books that get Waterstones or Barnes & Noble special editions and usually are an extremely high priority for resources at publishers. These are your Gone Girls, Yellowfaces, Lessons in Chemistrys and Yesteryears.

Meta data: All books have bibliographic metadata that feed from an internal publishing database to online retailers, which is how all the information and book covers get to places like Waterstones or Gardners etc. It’s a vital part of giving your book online visibility.

Nielsen BookData: Many bookshops (but not all) track all their sales data through Nielsen BookData. These are updated weekly on a Tuesday, meaning one sales period runs from Tuesday to Tuesday. This data compiles the Sunday Times bestsellers charts meaning that if you want to hit the bestsellers list, your book should be doing good figures in that short T to T period.

ONIX feed: this is the data feed that pulls all your metadata from your bibliographic database to online retailers. It often also extends to your warehousing as well so that all inventory can be tracked.

Proof: See Galley. This is a UK term.

Q: N/A

Royalties: This is a percentage of every book sale allocated for you. This goes towards paying off your advance, which once you’ve paid off, you can start earning more morning (see Earning out).

Subs numbers: This is your trade sales numbers before pub day (sometimes also referred to as a Dues Check). If you ask your publisher for a glimpse at your subs numbers, these won’t be your exact pre order numbers, but instead usually your B2B numbers. At my old publishing job, we catagorized the numbers as follows: Gardners, Waterstones, Independent Bookshops, Gardners, and Miscellaneous (libraries/education and other). The number assigned to each of these is how many books you’ve sold into that group on the run up to pub day.

Typeset: A typeset book is your word document after it’s been put through indesign. This is the digital file that looks like a novel.

U: N/A

V: N/A

Wholesaler: These are the businesses that often sell your novels to retailers and smaller bookshops if they don’t wish to purchase directly from the publisher. The most popular wholesaler in the UK is Gardners.

X: N/A

Y: N/A

Z: N/A

I’m an over sharer, an anxious mess, an ex publishing professional, a screenwriter, short story writer, personal essayist and a novelist (The Lamb & more soon).

This is where I come to pass and receive nervous notes and be transparent about my writing and my wobbles. It’s part diary, part scrap book, but mostly a collection of extremely nervous notes scribbled down.

I don’t have a paywall (bar one handwritten letter I write to paid subscribers every year), but if you’d like to support me, there’s a paid subscription option with a couple of small perks.

Subscribe now

Sometimes, getting your shit together means taking a bad day, and trying your absolute best to make it a day worth remembering.

Midway through June, I had a bad day. After struggling to fall asleep the night before, I had a 2am panic attack, two hours of sleep, and a sleep score of 32/100 (very low). As the summer light came in through the window, I was exhausted and depressed, and the sort of queasy that can only come from being over thirty and not having a full nights sleep.

I spent the morning catatonic, scrolling and scrolling and scrolling endlessly, hoping that it would swallow me up so I didn’t have to think. Period pains at a high, I spent a good portion of the day trying not to faint, vomiting and taking painkillers because the cramps were spreading to my thighs. After a big embrace from my heated blanket (and some codeine), I pushed myself and went for a small walk.

But it wasn’t the walk that turned it around for me.

No, it was a humble ham and cheese panini from the beach grill down by the water. That one beautiful, greasy, delicious panini gave me my strength back. It was cooked just right. Everything was crispy. The cheese and ham were a little smoky. It was salty, but not too much. And the bread had a real nice crunch with that perfect softness beneath. From the moment I bit into it, even though it was tipping it down with rain and everything smelled like rotten seaweed and damp, the little panini that could put the sparkle back in my day.

I finished every bite and came home. Started small. I brushed my teeth and got dressed. Drank a glass of water. Put H20 Just Add Water on the TV. Printed off the pages I needed to edit for the day and flicked the lid off a new pen. I dove in and scribbled until my palms cramped.

Somehow, hours passed. And I didn’t even notice.

Around 6pm, I finished my pages but wasn’t quite ready to type it all up, so I did a month’s worth of backlog finance admin. Typed up my notes after a nice dinner. Watched the latest drop of Vox Machina. Found myself delighted at the heist themed episode (if you know me well, you know heists are my weakness. I love them). Laughed so hard my heart felt lighter.

I hadn’t foreseen that I would get anything done that day, let alone want to remember it.

All because of one greasy little panini.

Blessed be that panini.

June has been all about overcoming, overwhelm and finding my seaworthiness as a writer. Certainty and calm are not something that have ever come naturally to me. I’m never certain of anything, I never trust my gut and I worry endlessly about being misunderstood or misinterpreted – which feels particularly painful while you’re in the seaweeds of editing a deeply emotional new novel you’re scared to show people or tell people about.

This is what I know: when I am anxious, I find myself lying in state (a lot). Insomnia sets in as I watch the clock turn from 11pm to 4am, mornings brought in by tears and numbness. I find myself unable to move. I find myself afraid. Constantly. I’ll later swallow the time by swaddling myself in a heated blanket and scrolling until the pain numbs. And it does numb, at least for a little bit. The worrying softens. But I’ve realised a better antidote to life is holding feelings instead of numbing them. We become much better, and braver writers that way (Thank you panini).

Outside of all that worry and writing, here’s what I did in June:

• Catan board game night with friends.

• Art gallery crawl in Newcastle - found a new favourite painting.

• Went to watch Drop Out Live and saw several of my favourite comedians. Cheered until my lungs hurt. Started a standing ovation.

• So many walkies.

• Proper grown up meals made from scratch.

• Finding a book I fell in love with (and one I didn’t).

• Ignored emails I probably shouldn’t have ignored. Whoops.

• Saw old friends.

• Won an award.

• Went to my local for steak night. Chips and peppercorn sauce is my favourite combo.

• Gave many, many cuddles to my cat, Figgy.

• Had a really fucking good panini.

I’m an over sharer, an anxious mess, an ex publishing professional, a screenwriter, short story writer, personal essayist and a novelist (The Lamb & more soon).

This is where I come to pass and receive nervous notes and be transparent about my writing and my wobbles. It’s part diary, part scrap book, but mostly a collection of extremely nervous notes scribbled down.

I don’t have a paywall (bar one handwritten letter I write to paid subscribers every year), but if you’d like to support me, there’s a paid subscription option with a couple of small perks.

Subscribe now

While writing my debut novel The Lamb, there were specific books that became my life raft. Sometimes, I wish I could go back and tell that version of me about everything our book went on to achieve and how all those books she was reading made it possible.

Back while I was writing The Lamb, I was doing the most random gumtree jobs to make ends meet. I was running market stalls, did one disastrous trial bar shift at a local hotel, and then finally landed a job in tech (where I was later made redundant after just six months). It was my first proper grown up job and I was devastated to lose it but I hit the gumtree odd jobs again while I searched for other opportunities. I then found a job in copywriting. Half way through my probation, I was sacked - right before Christmas. The reason cited? You’re a bad writer.

The mommy issues cannibals novel I was writing started to seem like a frivolous pipe dream.

My confidence was at its lowest. I was a flat broke failure of a person and a failure writer too. I had endless ambition but I was stuck in a cycle of financial and emotional instability with no clear end in sight. I was absolutely certain that there was no way I’d ever become a published author.

But, at the end of every day, even when I felt like the world was swallowing me whole, I could always escape into books.

These are the novels that made me feel held, that kept me writing, that inspired me when my tank was empty. These are the books that helped me regain my strength, and I hope they help you regain yours too.

In no particular order:

1. The Island Child by Molly Aikten

2. Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq

3. Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

4. In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

5. A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers

6. A Haunted House and Other Short Stories by Virginia Woolf

7. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

8. Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan le Fanu

9. Lanny by Max Porter

10. Grief is a Thing With Feathers by Max Porter

11. How Saints Die by Carmen Marcus

12. Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

13. Mammoth by Eva Baltasar

14. My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

15. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

16. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

I’m an over sharer, an anxious mess, an ex publishing professional, a screenwriter, short story writer, personal essayist and a novelist (The Lamb & more soon).

This is where I come to pass and receive nervous notes and be transparent about my writing and my wobbles. It’s part diary, part scrap book, but mostly a collection of extremely nervous notes scribbled down.

I don’t have a paywall (bar one handwritten letter I write to paid subscribers every year), but if you’d like to support me, there’s a paid subscription option with a couple of small perks.

Subscribe now

I finally feel like a real writer.

What a sentence.

When I started taking my writing seriously in 2015, every morning the first words to leave my mouth were I want to be a writer so badly. I’m not even joking. I said it every morning the moment my eyes came open, still full of sleep as I checked my emails to see if I’d had any short story or querying success. (I usually hadn’t). My friends, I can only assume, found my near-constant pining absolutely insufferable, but humoured and loved and supported me anyway1.

8 years after that, I got my literary agent, the same year I got my first book deal, but it wasn’t until 2025, that my first book was published. It was met with some acclaim and became a Sunday Times Bestseller (which still astounds me). I got a special edition. I was doing book events and travelling across the UK for over a year. I got lovely messages off readers and even some fan tattoos! And yet, I still didn’t feel like a ‘real’ writer.

This month, I’ve been reflecting on that phrase - “a real writer” - what it really means and where it comes from. I tried to define it. In my notebook, I pencilled a list of things that described what I thought one might look like:

• Someone intelligent

• Confident, but not arrogant

• Poses deep ideas

• Beloved by readers and influencers and critics and retailers

• Featured at every book festival

• Someone who sells out their events and is nominated for every big award

• They are rarely criticised, and loved by all the cool people on TikTok

• They have something important to say

• Bucket loads of mystique (they know when to be quiet)

• Someone who never struggles

• A clean image - no anxiety

• Someone who can sit and write all day (and it’s basically publish ready)

• They have a garden and a big house where they can write like they’re an author from another, more simple time

• Easy going (and easy to work with)

• Doesn’t worry about money (because financial literacy is chic)

• Even the hard bits a total breeze for “real writer”

• Effortlessly shift huge sales figures so their publishers adore them

• Someone perfect

Wild - I just described the person all authors want to be (AKA publishing’s chosen one).

My debut journey was entirely magical, but, even though I was very lucky to work with such a dedicated team, I still felt lots of uncertainty. I’m realising, over a year after having been published, that putting your work out there so publicly, reveals how much or little you really think of yourself. All the insecurities or personal shortcomings you’d managed to keep buried begin to wriggle beneath the surface. Every terrible thought or anxiety you’ve ever had about yourself or your work is now someone’s very public social media review or reddit post.

After a nice, long think, I realised that our confidence must come from within if it’s to be seaworthy (rather from what opportunity and acclaim is bestowed upon us).

Living with that often deeply excruciatingly public criticism is requirement of the job. That means all the mental health maintenance and working on becoming a genuinely positive, confident person becomes an equally important part of the job too - all so there can be some sort of balance to offset the (genuinely overwhelming, cosmic and Lovecraftian) fear of being perceived.

So that’s what I’ve been doing this month.

I’ve been working on myself. I’ve been feeding my optimism, curiosity and positivity to keep myself resilient, hoping I become some sort of happiness addict. I put less value in the superficial aesthetic of being a writer (see garden and big house where one can write their novel), and more value into the way I feel when I write (which is free, creative and powerful - and definitely capable of defeating Cthulhu if I wanted to.)

This is what that looked like in May:

Long Form

Despite being worried I lacked the ability, I worked on my next round of edits. I turned the ms around in three weeks and burned the midnight oil sculpting a much stronger book. I handed it in three days early and then only spent 25% of the following week worrying about whether or not it was good enough (which is a significant and most remarkable improvement from the last time).

Short Form

I got the A-OK that a nonfiction piece I’d written for a magazine had no more editorial work to do and was ready to go. I tackled my edits on a very, very dark short story I’ve written about fatphobia (soon to be announced). Got another short story over the line, handed it into the commissioning body and waited for notes.

Freelance & Development

Miraculously got two more short story commissions for this year and hustled like crazy with my freelancing. I facilitated several really awesome horror workshops. I also got one of those terrifying emails to let me know a screen project went out on submission (ahhhhhh!). Alongside that, I’ve been working with some really talented mentee clients to get their work ready for querying. And last, The Lamb won the 2026 Nota Bene Prize, which came at precisely the moment I needed it. The news found me when I was feeling low about my ability and worthiness. The prize was a public vote, and I felt a lot of gratitude to my readers, who make me feel special and clever every single day <3

I want to feel like “a real writer” forever. I find I feel like this when I’m busy and creating, escaping from the heaviness of planet earth in the year of our lord 2026. Unfortunately, I’m not always this busy. And most of the time, I don’t feel like a “real writer”.

What I do know is this: how we feel about ourselves is never a linear journey, but right now, I am content. I know my worth. I am a writer.

Outside of writing, I had a quiet month. But this is how I spent my time:

• Got four new small tattoos, which in turn made me feel a little bit more like myself. My favourites are the cheeky seagull and the d20 dice.

• Became a dungeon master! I’ve previously ran a very short and unsuccessful campaign but… guys, I think I’ve got it this time?

• Spent time with my cat and embraced the quiet.

• Went on a beautiful sea walk.

• Started waking up earlier because the sun comes through the curtains before 7am.

• Watched comfort shows and played video games.

• Used my phone 50% less than the previous month, and embraced offline living as much as I could.

• Took the time to engage in non-career hobbies and bound three more books.

• Felt pride in one of my friends getting all their flowers at long last!

• Watched the first two Shrek movies after that evil far right party won my local council elections in a landslide victory. This was a good choice because Shrek is very green and it tells the story of a rough around the edges, impoverished regional man who lives in a swamp, who then tries to clear all the fairy tale refugees from his home town. He then grows a strong bond of attachment to one of the refugees (a donkey voiced by a black man) and goes on a quest with him to get his home back from the evil price who abandoned all the refugees in the swamp, but realises, that actually they are outsiders just like him. The donkey ends up living in the swamp with him, and at the end, the fairytale refugees become his friends and they all have a big party at the swamp when he gets married.

I’m an over sharer, an anxious mess, an ex publishing professional, a screenwriter, short story writer, personal essayist and a novelist (The Lamb & more soon).

This is where I come to pass and receive nervous notes and be transparent about my writing and my wobbles. It’s part diary, part scrap book, but mostly a collection of extremely nervous notes scribbled down.

I don’t have a paywall (bar one handwritten letter I write to paid subscribers every year), but if you’d like to support me, there’s a paid subscription option with a couple of small perks.

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There’s an already a million lists of the best books on writing novels out there but for too long the (albeit very useful but over exposed) cat1 book has dominated the top of every list.

If you’re like me, you lead by your emotions and your strength in writing novels comes from that empathetic compass you keep beneath the skin. Sometimes, even if they hold a trove of valuable advice, reading the very formulaic ‘how to’ guides such as the cat book can feel like a foreign language and so I’ve compiled a list of books that offer (sometimes unconventional) wisdom on the craft of words and writing, all of which I feel lead with emotion first before logic.

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The Etymologicon by Mark Forsyth

I turned to this novel first after receiving some glorious writing advice from a poet called Meg Pattie. I was struggling to find the right word in the sentence I was writing. I was searching for something specific that would pinch the exact emotion and verb I needed, and like I always do, I went to thesaurus.com. That day, Meg2 changed my life. She told me as part of her creative practice as a poet, instead of doing a straightforward search in an online thesaurus, to instead look at the historical root of the word and let it take you on a bit of a journey. The first thing I did after work3 that day was go to my local bookshop and buy this book to learn more about the history of our language. To write the work of the future, we must first glimpse back.

Negotiating with the Dead by Margaret Atwood

While Negotiating with the Dead4 is less of a how to guide on writing, what it does do is inspire. This is a book about what it means to write, and when you’re missing that crucial ingredient that we all need when we sit down at the desk - inspiration - this book is the only medicine I need to remind me why I write in the first place.

Space Crone by Ursula K. Le Guin

I promise you there will be traditional craft books on this list, but first, let me talk to you about Space Crone. Ursula K. Le Guin is one of the greatest speculative writers there is and here is some nonfiction on her observations on feminism and gender ( mostly through the lens of other works of fiction).

On Writing by Stephen King

Here’s a book that tells you how to be a good writer straight from the horses mouth. On Writing by Stephen King offers lots of practical advice5, but also asks us to really analyse how we view the act of writing. It poses that we, instead of looking at writing as being solitary and static, to instead see it as a way for us to connect with the world. For all its brilliant qualities, this is a book that reminds me when I sit at the desk, all by my lonesome, I’m never truly alone.

Writing the Uncanny by various authors

An anthology published by the one and only Dead Ink Books - so you know this book is the tits. This is one for the weirdos. If you’re interested in writing horror, speculative, gothic or folklore, this is an absolute must read. It’s an anthology of writing from some of the greatest uncanny contemporary writers and their nuggets of practical/emotional wisdom.

Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin

So good, she’s on the list twice. Le Guin is a master storyteller and in this book, she tells all on the writing exercises that helped her become the writer she was. It’s a nurturing read that feels like a hand squeeze from one of the greats.

Into the Woods by John Yorke

This is one of those classic ‘how to write’ novels that every tutor and writer will recommend endlessly. Yorke’s passion for the craft is utterly infectious and every time I return to this book, I find myself putting it down after only a few pages because I suddenly feel the urge to write. If you’re struggling for inspiration, but also need something to sharpen those practical writing senses, this is the one.

In Writing by Hattie Crisell

Split into organised segments of all the problems you might come up against as an author, this book is filled with conversations from your favourite writers on how books come about, how ideas take their shape and what happens when our confidence fails us. It’s another one of those warm hug books that some of us might need when we stumble.

WRITING BOOKS ON MY TBR

These are some writing books that are currently on my TBR, because as ever, I’m constantly looking for new books that will pull me ou

t of my dreaded writing slumps. If you’ve read any of these, make sure to let me know how you found them!

I’m an over sharer, an anxious mess, an ex publishing professional, a screenwriter, short story writer, personal essayist and a novelist (The Lamb & more soon).

This is where I come to pass and receive nervous notes and be transparent about my writing and my wobbles. It’s part diary, part scrap book, but mostly a collection of extremely nervous notes scribbled down.

I don’t have a paywall (bar one handwritten letter I write to paid subscribers every year), but if you’d like to support me, there’s a paid subscription option with a couple of small perks.

Subscribe now

A little bit of shameless self promotion! My book has been shortlisted for the Nota Bene Prize (EEK WHAT?!). You can vote for it here.

I’m scared I’m the only writer who sits at their laptop and genuinely feels afraid of what comes next. Whether I’m hunched over like a prawn in the midsts of book edits or starting something brand new, I’m never quite certain I know what I’m doing and that terrifies me.

When I (author of cannibal novel, The Lamb, personal essayist with a specialism in horror and filmmaker of horror films) confess to others that I scare easily, it’s usually met with surprise. So I’m making it official. Here is an honest list of things I’m petrified of:

• Getting it wrong

• Spiders

• Snakes

• Cthulhu

• Losing the mental health battle

• Space and physics that feel unexplainable despite there being a clear science to explain them (see Titan Submersible Implosion or Chernobyl hyper fixations)

• Leaving the house

• Disappointing readers (and disappointing publishing in general)

• Not living up to my potential

• Evil men waging wars

• The size of my own body

• The world staying this lost and unsalvageable

• Social media

• That I might bite my nails so much that one day they never grow back

• Hairline cracks in my wall being more than hairline cracks

• My hyper fixations consuming me and there being no real substance underneath1

• That dry bit of skin on my leg being an overlooked rare disease

• My flat setting on fire every time I leave it

• Alternately, being thirty and already having reached my potential with nowhere left to go

• Not being good enough

Keep all that in mind while I tell you about some of the writing I’ve done this month.

I’ve had an idea for a short story for six years. It felt culturally personal to the region I grew up in, even though it’s about an entirely fictitious beast. First, I wrote it as a short film pitch, but when that fell through due to the funding opportunity being axed by the studio, I decided at some point, it would become a short story instead. The romantic idea of writing it then became something I put at the bottom of a to do list every month.

I put it off. Put it off again. Then again. Until the idea of writing it became so overwhelming that I decided actually maybe I wouldn’t write it at all. That I would never be a good enough writer to pull it off.

Then came a call from a publisher who needed a short story about a fictitious regional beast, and so I woke up an idea I had intended to leave slumbering. I wrote the first half two months ago in a train station pub in York and then did what I do best, which is put off writing the rest until the last possible moment (April 2026, AKA now).

I ended up finishing that short story, and as it turned out, despite my worries that it would be terrible, it has become one of my proudest story accomplishments of the last 18 months or so (now I just have to hope the editor feels the same).

This month, I also did my last pass at a feature script before I go out on submission with it (more on this later). I took a punt for three article pitches and got not one, but two2. And in a vein to this month’s theme of I’m scared and have no idea what I’m doing, I also got my next round of edits back for my current work in progress, which is something that taps into a difficult place for me. I was delighted to find, that after a prolonged moment of overwhelm and a lot of oh Jesus Christ, how am I going to fix this, I felt excited by the notes. Curious with them. Eager to get stuck in with them. After many moments of midnight writing and lunch time meandering, I got that feeling - that even though I don’t know what I’m doing and even though I’m terrified for a multitude of reasons that sprawl beyond even writing3, that I should be brave enough to show up and believe I can.

So Iet me take the advice I constantly dish out to my friends: Ignore the urge to close your laptop and throw it in the sea. Instead, embrace terror4. Let it make you braver. Let it bend you until you fear your might break, because not only will you become more closely acquainted with your limits (an important part of ourselves we often avoid), but you will be stronger for knowing them more intimately too.

Besides writing, here’s how I found myself spending my time in April:

I boat watched where the river breaches the sea and saw new boats I’ve never logged before

Soaked up as much vitamin D as possible

Got a new couch desk that has an adjustable height to help with back pain (yay)

Carpet picnic on a rainy midnight

Wrapped a gift for a friend

Finished only a single book

Felt disappointment at a book and a TV show that I was sure were going to be new pieces of my personality

Made a roast dinner with my loves and ate communally

Watched National Treasure with Literal Literary National Treasure, Amy Twigg (AKA )

Chose my favourite watches of the month: Project Hail Mary, The Florida Project, The Pitt and Die My Love

As always, boardgames with my friends

Missed my long distance friends, but then played Minecraft with them

Took a TikTok hiatus for my mental health

Promised myself I’d do an Iris from The Holiday and recenter myself as the main character in my own life

I’m an over sharer, an anxious mess, an ex publishing professional, a screenwriter, short story writer, personal essayist and a novelist (The Lamb & more soon).

This is where I come to pass and receive nervous notes and be transparent about my writing and my wobbles. It’s part diary, part scrap book, but mostly a collection of extremely nervous notes scribbled down.

I don’t have a paywall (bar one handwritten letter I write to paid subscribers every year), but if you’d like to support me, there’s a paid subscription option with a couple of small perks.

Subscribe now

A little bit of shameless self promotion! My book has been shortlisted for the Nota Bene Prize (EEK WHAT?!). You can vote for it here.

Disclaimer: I’m not a therapist, psychologist, or scientist etc. These are just my thoughts on what rejection means and why I think it impacts us so much.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about rejection. Specifically:

1. That awful, overwhelming sinking feeling it elicits followed by the impulse to curl up, hide and make myself as small as possible (which I realise is an extreme, rather animal response to receiving what usually arrives in the form of an email).

2. That its inevitability comes not only from creative pursuits but also from our social lives and professional circles, and is therefore impossible to out run or hide from.

3. And that, no matter how much it happens to us, it still finds a way place doubt where there should be courage. To instead, have us believe we’ll never do anything of note. That we’ll be forgotten about, unremarkable, and left to gather dust upon a shelf somewhere.

left me this ‘nervous note’ and of course, I felt it my duty as someone who often also feels very ‘</3’ and ‘ugh’ about rejections to reply with some thoughts. So, Poetry and Protesting, if you’re reading this, here is your virtual hand squeeze and 'you got this' message from your resident expert in rejection (because believe me, I’ve had my fair share).1

Rejection is the act of refusing to accept, consider, or use something or someone. That’s what a dictionary will tell you about the meaning of rejection. It gives the autonomy to the rejecter, rather than the rejectee and obviously doesn’t pose anything about the feelings that come as a result of it, which usually manifests as a profound sense of shame, heartbreak, and embarrassment due to having shared something vulnerable or tried only for someone to say: no thanks x

Let me introduce you to The Big Feelings Department. The BFD for short. (It’s not lost on me that the abbreviation of the big feelings department widely translates as big f*cking deal).

The BFD is the name I’ve bestowed upon my messy emotions. Those all consuming, impossible to curb, intense animal instincts. Depending on the circumstances, the BFD might trigger shock, fight or flight, adrenaline, worry, stress, intuition, and maybe, if it’s feeling particularly frightened, all these experiences all at once.

It may come as a surprise to most that I still cycle through these emotions regularly because I’m a bestselling writer who should be grown up and know better than to be honest about feeling the aforementioned on a very public Substack post. Alas, here I am. Worried and anxious and frightened every time I feel rejected or compare myself to another writer.

In the soft fleshy folds of your brain, I want you to imagine this:

There’s a small room at the very back and it’s filled with files, old computers that are hanging on by a thread, a neglected plant that hasn’t seen water in a decade or two, a bruise-like damp stain which haunts the ceiling, and a nervous admin assistant who’s been drinking copious amounts of espresso on drip since the day you were born in order to keep you alive.

That admin assistant hasn’t taken a break. They’re constantly on high alert, searching for the next threat: The virus that could shut down essential organs. The snake that’s been hiding in the grass. The figure who’s been following you two streets now and hasn’t veered off onto their own path.

The admin assistant of the big feelings department is your survival instincts.

They keep you alive. They taught you to cry when you didn’t have words because that’s how you’d signal to other, more grown up homo sapiens that something was wrong and that you needed help. And their Big Feelings Department would usually answer the call.

Look at that! Two incredibly competent admin assistants speaking to one another to fix the problem. Yay!

At this point, you’re probably wondering what the link is between a snake in the grass and receiving a “no thanks x”2 email?

We are social creatures. A bajillion years ago, I can only surmise3 that ‘failure’ meant you were no longer useful to the social unit. Your value would have decreased. (Maybe you couldn’t defeat the mountain lion or bring back meat for the group’s pot luck). But now, in 2026, it’s rare (though not impossible) that you’d find yourself in situ with a mountain lion. The predator has vanished, but our instincts remain the same.

Cue: mountain lion. Social acceptance.

Rejection is the new social predator. Overdosed on coffee, the BFD’s admin assistant is fighting for their life when you get those “no thanks x” emails that harmlessly pop up on a random Friday afternoon right before the weekend. I pose we see something similar in our creative jealousy too, and often wonder if it’s unlocking the hunter/gatherer mentality somewhere deep within my brain - that each time I compare myself to someone I deeply admire, that the anxious ancient human in me knows there are finite numbers of berries and is worried we might starve if we don’t have exactly what the other writer has.

Those big intense feelings you have, they come from longing to be to be seen and accepted by others. Often, our stories and poems come from a vulnerable place. They are ways of us making sense of the senseless and telling others our story: please, God, I hope you understand me because I am giving you the most fragile piece of myself. If you do not understand me, then please simply accept me.

I hope you realise just how remarkable it is we stay persistent and keep our longing alive to share our stories and poems and art - even in spite of the endless onslaught of online negativity and industry rejection. That’s a sign that there’s still some courage left in the tank, and that it’s not been entirely overcome by self doubt.

You now have one job: to remain soft, to hold your bravery, even if that goes against your instincts. To remain vulnerable with words. To keep finding ways to tell your story. To keep submitting your writing. Sending out queries. Discovering new poems and stories you may not have even realised were hidden within you, but could only be exhumed by that opportunity passing you by. And most crucially, your job is to remember your why.

Your why is the single sentence that surmises why you write in the first place. It might be a description of a feeling or a calling or a question. It might be something that irrevocably changed you. It could be anything. Whatever the case, write it down, put it somewhere you can see it every day. Your why is your compass for navigating all this: where capitalism and opportunity meets art.

I often feel it’s not the rejection or comparison that’s difficult to manage, but that our disappointment stems from something else entirely. That perhaps what’s more difficult than being rejected is trying in the first place, even when the odds of being able to connect with the right reader, someone, anyone, point to failure.

That is called hope or the indomitable human spirit, if you like, to try even when the odds are against us. But believe it or not, there’s not a lot of that going around these days, so if you have it, you’re in possession of something quite precious and rare.

So, let’s go back to the start. I’ve been thinking a lot about rejection lately. Specifically:

1. That awful sinking feeling it elicits - something that only happens to signal how deeply we care.

2. That its inevitability comes not only from creative pursuits but also from our social lives and professional circles because rejection can only happen when we put ourselves out there to try.

3. And that, no matter how much it happens to us, it still finds a way place doubt where there should be courage. But hear me: you will do something of note. You won’t be forgotten. You are entirely remarkable. You’ll not gather dust upon a shelf.

All I can tell you is that it will be okay, even if you’re beginning to believe that perhaps it won’t be. Now, this is what I want you to do:

Feel your feelings.

Hold them tight.

Remember your ‘why’.

Do something kind for yourself.

Write down three things that make you feel hopeful about the world at large.

Feel the sunlight on your skin or smell the fur of your cat’s belly.

Take a deep breath the outside air.

Write something on paper, even if its just your shopping list.

Try again tomorrow.

I’m an over sharer, an anxious mess, an ex publishing professional, a screenwriter, short story writer, personal essayist and a novelist (The Lamb & more soon).

This is where I come to pass and receive nervous notes and be transparent about my writing and my wobbles. It’s part diary, part scrap book, but mostly a collection of extremely nervous notes scribbled down.

I don’t have a paywall (bar one handwritten letter I write to paid subscribers every year), but if you’d like to support me, there’s a paid subscription option with a couple of small perks.

Subscribe now

Just a quick one from me, and I’m terribly sorry because it’s a little bit of shameless self promotion but also one of those incredibly rare sparkly author moments we all dream of having every now and then.

My debut novel, The Lamb, is a finalist for the Nota Bene Prize. The rest of the finalist shortlist are obviously incredibly cool, chic authors, which I think possibly means that I might be a cool, chic author too.

These moments are so special because amongst the difficult tangles of author life (the rejection and the comparison and the crippling moments of self doubt), we get these glimmers when we most need them. They feel like cosmic hand squeezes: hey dude. You’re doing great. Someone read something you wrote and it turns out, despite the anxious ‘what if everybody hates it’ scenario you play over and over in your head, someone really loved it actually. Enough to give it that juicy little finalist sticker.

If you fancy it, you can vote for The Lamb here. Gan on, you know you want to.

My usual Friday Substack is still coming to your inboxes at 7AM, and that one will be on surviving rejection and all the big feelings that come with it. See you Friday!

I’m an over sharer, an anxious mess, an ex publishing professional, a screenwriter, short story writer, personal essayist and a novelist (The Lamb & more soon).

This is where I come to pass and receive nervous notes and be transparent about my writing and my wobbles. It’s part diary, part scrap book, but mostly a collection of extremely nervous notes scribbled down.

I don’t have a paywall (bar one handwritten letter I write to paid subscribers every year), but if you’d like to support me, there’s a paid subscription option with a couple of small perks.

Subscribe now

I’m in that terrible, evil purgatory after having sent off my writing to editors, directors and agents, and so I spent much of March having no idea what to do with myself. I found myself plagued with anxiety and so I decided that March would instead be about finding myself again. Not Lucy the author or screenwriter. Lucy the person.

Over January and February, I redrafted and rewrote (in that order) a feature script and a manuscript, and handed them both over to the powers that be. For that reason, my writing habits over March were purposely relaxed.

For a few years, I’ve been suffering with chronic illness, and it’s been a long time since I’ve felt like my ‘old1’ self: the way my body used to feel when it could move freely and flexibly, filled with stamina and the energy of a hyperactive puppy2. Before I got sick, I was younger, smaller, probably prettier too in the eyes of the big scary beauty standard, I took more risks, wore more make up, died my hair different colours just because I felt like it. But since becoming sick, I made a promise to myself that I would try to fall in love with the body I have rather than the one I wanted, which is something I waver on depending on my mood. Turns out being chronically ill isn’t just mastering how to read your body from the inside out, but it’s also learning you have a love/hate relationship with your body, where you jump between adoring it, loving it, finding new beauty in it and then instead, feeling quite angry at it.

Miraculously, for a single day in March, after a lot of rest, my body felt like an echo of the old one - the one I had lost after having had a really quite scary bout of Covid years ago. But waking up on this good day felt like there was music in my body. With a cup of tea and a rare optimism having captured my Tuesday morning heart, I put on my favourite pair of jeans and T-shirt, pulled a baseball cap over my long hair, donned an old bomber jacket I haven’t worn in years and shoved my iPod in my pocket: I was going for a walk and nothing would stop me. Even though I knew it might be a while before I felt like this again, I made the most of feeling human again in my new body - the one that’s sick.

Sadness didn’t bind me to my bedsheets.

Anxiety didn’t pick at my fingernails until they bled.

Chronic illness didn’t mire me to the spot I’ve fossilled into the couch.

I went for an hour-long walk by myself - which is miraculous btw.

Despite the fact the world is becoming a place I’m scared of living in, for a very brief moment, the tension let up. I felt the warmth of the sunlight on my face3, watched dogs chase their tails on the sand as waves came up to shore and smiled as the ducks splashed their wings in the park pond. I felt that quiet, easy human joy that Wendy Cope wrote about in her poem, The Orange:

Just for the hour, there wasn’t even a pulse of joint or chest pain, which is something I’ve become used to in my flare ups.

Even with everything that’s going on, all the atrocities, the world felt easy and I realised how lucky I am to be alive in a corner of the world that is quiet: a small, beat up, sleepy coastal town in the north of England where everyone knows each other.

That one beautiful day aside, I promise I did some writing. I’m discovering that a successful month as a full time author/freelancer sometimes looks like finishing some presentations late at night with an almost full cup of tea at your side that you forgot to drink because you were too on task. Getting all your accounts organised because AHHH THE FINANCIAL YEAR IS ENDING! Writing a little bit more of a short story but leaving it to pulse for a beat because you know you don’t have the creative juice to finish it. Delivering university talks and workshops. Answering emails. Sending and chasing invoices. Prowling for new writing commissions and successfully finding two. Resting and recovering from burn out after an insane 16 month stretch.

It’s been quiet but beyond the writing, I:

Played a great many board games with friends.4

Read two books I absolutely adored: the scrumptiously funny and dark A Healthy Appetite by Katie Huttlestone and an unpublished novel by .

Saw my first ever Monet and it was beautiful.

Proceeded to ponder Emma’s devastatingly heartbreaking manuscript for over a week because how could a snippet of a characters internet search history make me ugly cry.

Hired an Etsy witch to tell me everything would be okay.

Had copious cat cuddles when I felt blue.

Let myself have quiet days when my anxiety spiked.

Did two boring adult admin tasks: arranged for a vet appointment for Figgy and paid for a new blue bin because a local youth stole my recycling bin. Twat.

Laughed so hard with my friends that, for the first time in maybe a decade, my belly cramped. The nice sort of agony.

Had an impromptu (and hysterical) sex ed lesson from friends so I could learn more about my own fanny.

Re-read a shit load of gorgeous poetry collections I loved only to find that I loved them even more on a second read (thank you Megan Pattie, Georgie Jones, Wendy Cope and Ruth Padel).

Inhaled a poetry collection called Little Bitch by Ellora Sutton, which was f**king fantastic.

Gave a draft of my book to a trusted writing friend because it’ll be a long while before my editors can read5 and I really wanted a hand squeeze/tummy rub.

Got the reassurance I needed that everything was okay. (Note to self: hearing it from a friend means more than hearing it from an Etsy witch).

Went for a walk by the beach and got some vitamin D.

Felt a rare moment of quiet joy while I watched seagulls fight over an abandoned, soggy box of fish and chips.

I’m an over sharer, an anxious mess, an ex publishing professional, a screenwriter, short story writer, personal essayist and a novelist (The Lamb & more soon).

This is where I come to pass and receive nervous notes and be transparent about my writing and my wobbles. It’s part diary, part scrap book, but mostly a collection of extremely nervous notes scribbled down.

I don’t have a paywall (bar one handwritten letter I write to paid subscribers every year), but if you’d like to support me, there’s a paid subscription option with a couple of small perks.

Subscribe now

**Note: I originally wrote this for Anna Wharton’s amazing substack on 28th of December 2025, which you can visit here.

The advice I probably needed to hear as an almost-novelist was that it’s completely okay and normal to fail.

Culturally, we have such a fraught relationship to perfectionism, whether or not we succeed or fail, and if we succeed or fail well enough. But I find myself wondering, why do we have such a prickly relationship and friction around failure? If you’re that writer that is constantly finding a typo in your draft work, or maybe you’re trapped in the query trenches with no way out, or maybe it’s because you hit sent too soon on that email to your editor and noticed a grammar fumble before you could pull it back1 – if those imperfections chime, then this advice is for you.

Since publishing my book, I’m so much more forgiving2 of my mistakes. I thought I’d be the opposite. Even though I still experience a lot of shame around my shortcomings, whether they’re small typos hiding in my drafts or something bigger, like when I’m not chosen for specific lists or editorial spots, I’ve decided to view those moments instead as a proof of life: that in the year of our lord 2025, when all the world seems to be slipping (rather too quickly) down a slope, I’m trying. Isn’t that great? That we’re trying despite all the odds, despite all the scary things happening around us, that we’re still trying.

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned about writing, it’s that you don’t suddenly become a genius when you get your book deal or when you become a bestseller. You still have exactly the same brain as before, the same fears, the same insecurities and worries, and so viewing writing as a decades-long pursuit of curiosity (where we’re allowed to fumble it big time and make mistakes - even when those mistakes seem humiliatingly public) will help you make it to the very end.

I used to be a perfectionist3. I would tear my brain apart trying to make every piece of writing absolutely perfect and left myself with no room for error, but since becoming a professional author, I’ve actually relaxed. Writing can never be perfect. It’s a deeply human act to write. It exposes all of our endlessly fascinating flaws and vulnerabilities, and it’s teaches us to embrace our natural messiness, our personhood, our ‘humanness’.

This is a piece of advice for anyone who isn’t detail-oriented and finds themselves being messy: Forgive yourself. You’re not a bad writer because you’re messy4. Embrace your strengths, your curiosity, your emotional intelligence, and your gut instincts. Ultimately, most mistakes can be fixed. Typos can be corrected, manuscripts are edited and developed within an inch of their lives, but what’s more difficult to learn, near impossible in fact, is that curiosity and that constant persistence despite every door closing. Actually most of my mistakes are fixable, but more than that, the same mistakes everyone else is making. The more valuable skill is the stamina I have to withstand every single “no”5 that comes into my inbox.

I’m an over sharer, an anxious mess, an ex publishing professional, a screenwriter, short story writer, personal essayist and a novelist (The Lamb & more soon).

This is where I come to pass and receive nervous notes and be transparent about my writing and my wobbles. It’s part diary, part scrap book, but mostly a collection of extremely nervous notes scribbled down.

I don’t have a paywall (bar one handwritten letter I write to paid subscribers every year), but if you’d like to support me, there’s a paid subscription option with a couple of small perks.

Subscribe now

First, an annoying career klaxon: My novel The Lamb came out in paperback in the US this month! You can support me by heading to your local indie and finding one of the 4000 indie exclusive signed editions 🙂‍↕️ it’s never been more important to support small business ❤️

Oh February, how I have loved and hated you.

It’s official.

I’ve been a full time writer for eight weeks.

I was prepared to have some teething issues. A struggle to show up at the desk and find my new rhythm1. I promised myself I wouldn’t romanticise it because I knew it wouldn’t solve all the strain or difficulties we all have in life. But guess what? It’s undeniably romantic as heck. I’m loving it (even if I was right about the second part - the bit where it doesn’t fix everything in my life).

Somehow, even the moments of oh god, what if I can’t make this book the book I want it to be? have been harmoniously more romantic and manageable than while I had the same wobbles as an exhausted sales & marketing assistant.

But let’s dive in.

I’ve been working towards a terrifying looming deadline2. And alongside working with my clients and mentees, I’ve been hopelessly racing to finish the next draft of my book and prepping for a busy March of commission writing.

Let’s start with the cava mal of it all.

Oh February, how I have hated… the research. The enormously heavy research that has taken me to some of the darkest inner cavities of my own body. I’m writing about a difficult and intimate subject matter at the moment and it’s fascinating how the research involved has transcended my web browser and impacted my personal habits.

In complete honesty, I’ve barely left the house and I’m either I’m showering four times a day or leaving it a little bit too long between showers3. I think the story will be better for it, even if I am not (which is not a habit I endorse for any writer or creative practitioner).

Because of this, I have a plan for a very soft March (even if it’s busy). I have a few more writing deadlines in the month ahead for scripts and short stories, but I’ve made a promise to myself that I will be softer with myself and that I must leave the house at least once a day because this month, my four walls have gotten pretty old.

Oh February, how I have loved… Finishing the next draft of my book and filling a moleskin from start to finish. Then, as a result of the latter, starting a new moleskin and feeling how crisp, fresh and clean the pages feel against the roll of my pen. There really is no dopamine hit as clean as earning the beginning of a fresh notebook after you completely fill the last one. It feels so earned and satisfying to put down that first splodge of ink onto the clean white page.

I loved surfacing for air after having spent so many months (and years) under the water with this book. And then I loved that feeling that came after - the certainty in my gut that I was ready to let go of this draft until the next one comes back along.

I loved the endless days of writing from morning until night, even when my palm began to ache and the encouragement from my friends, who spent a great deal of their time with me saying: Lucy, you’re doing really well. Keep going. You’ve got this. Everything is going to be okay.

I loved how that one loved one saw me falling asleep at my laptop late one night after playing a board game4. I was typing up my corrections. They offered to take the wheel and finish fixing my typos so I could rest after a very long and very sedentary 16 hour day (with a cute little board game break). I loved feeling my village all around me on the days I worked myself to the bone.

Beyond the world of writing, this is how I’ve spent the very precious few minutes I had spare.

Finished a moleskin and started one anew.

Wrote some poems when I felt blue.

Cuddles with my black cat, Figgy.

Read some gorgeous novels (including my first ever Deborah Levy, and before you ask, yes I am forever changed for it)5.

Comfort nights spent sleeping on the blow up bed in the living room just so I could feel like a kid again after tricky days.

Watching documentaries on my special interest subject matter which I’ve seen a dozen times before.

I learned a new skill and began book binding.6

Reminding myself of beautiful things when my head sips into a dark place.

Having moments of quiet. Ignoring my phone and my phone calls. Finding comfort in my alone time.

Went to the ocean for the first time in weeks.

Won two chess matches and played countless board games.

Recovered from a deeply, deeply unpleasant plague I contracted in January (and then the horrible chronic illness flare up that came immediately after as a result).

Seeing my beloved friends and having a belated 30th birthday party.

I’m an over sharer, an anxious mess, an ex publishing professional, a screenwriter, short story writer, personal essayist and a novelist (The Lamb & more soon).

This is where I come to pass and receive nervous notes and be transparent about my writing and my wobbles. It’s part diary, part scrap book, but mostly a collection of extremely nervous notes scribbled down.

I don’t have a paywall (bar one handwritten letter I write to paid subscribers every year), but if you’d like to support me, there’s a paid subscription option with a couple of small perks.

Subscribe now

, my love, thank you for asking this question because I have THOUGHTS.

The amazing thing about being a writer is being able to daydream a thousand breathtaking ideas and feel that spark of potential that one of them could be ‘the next great novel’, the bestseller, the book of the year, the book that is passed between friends, the book that feels like the warmest comfort in the hardest moment of someone’s life.

There’s no better feeling than the beginning of a project when you’re stepping into something new for the first time, peeling back the soft layers of a new project to find the vulnerable and tender story just beneath1. When you write stories for a living, it’s a moment filled with hope and the promise of possibility - which is something you experience less and less as you progress with a piece of writing on account of the fact that you steadily stop discovering it in new ways the longer you work on it.

At this moment, right at the beginning, there’s a unique excitement in the uncertainty that this could either be the next great novel or it could stay hidden in a drawer gathering dust and there’s no way of knowing which will be the fated ending to this spark of an idea.

As writers, we are drawn to the thrill of that gamble.

Of course, when you write a novel, the result is always entirely subjective. For some readers, their soul will be moved but there will be others who believe it’s the worst thing they’ve ever read. That’s the beautiful thing about humans - we’re all so different, we’re all looking for something different in our stories, and we’re often impossible to predict.

Some of us want to feel seen, to have the first layers of our skin peeled back until we can experience the raw, sensitive under-muscle where we’re hiding the most tender of our secrets. Others want to step into someone else’s shoes and experience a life they’ve never lived before. Some just want to be entertained for a few hours, to escape the anxieties chasing them through everyday life. The problem we have as writers is to figure out which of those people we’re writing for, even if we can never predict how our stories will be received.

All we can do is write the best possible story that we can. The world is too wide, too filled with (seemingly random) variables, and there are too many people to please if you are setting out with the sole desire of making something “great” that will be universally loved by all. What is one person’s one-star Goodreads review is another’s comfort, heartbeat, masterpiece. The only thing you can do is write the story you desperately need(ed) to hear. It’s a cliché for a reason, but if you are curious with that statement, what you’ll find is that life is far too short to fail writing a book you don’t love to your bones.

If you’ve found the spark of an idea that excites you, that alone is enough to know you should keep exploring it. These are some of the few moments as writers where we are given rare clarity about what we should do next. If you’re lucky enough to find those glimmers, if you feel certain about them, then those are stories you should absolutely pursue.

In short, the answer is simple: there’s no way of ever truly knowing if something is the ‘right’ idea to look at next, but that is the evidence of our courage - that despite all the odds stacked against us, despite the hundreds of thousands of books being written and masterpieces being sculpted every day, we choose to show up and write anyway.

That’s why this career is so terrifying. It’s why so many people talk about writing books but never finish them.

We owe it to ourselves to explore those glimmers we feel when an idea first comes to us. That spark is your compass, which will always be there to help you when you feel lost or hopeless, when you feel like this project you’ve poured years into has somehow lost its way, for when you’re ready to throw in the towel. Those first burning glimmers are the moments that count the most.

All we really have, right at the beginning, is hope that someone has felt the way we’re feeling so we can reply: I feel it too, and here it is evidenced.

I’m an over sharer, an anxious mess, an ex publishing professional, a screenwriter, short story writer, personal essayist and a novelist (The Lamb & more soon).

This is where I come to pass and receive nervous notes and be transparent about my writing and my wobbles. It’s part diary, part scrap book, but mostly a collection of extremely nervous notes scribbled down.

I don’t have a paywall (bar one handwritten letter I write to paid subscribers every year), but if you’d like to support me, there’s a paid subscription option with a couple of small perks.

Subscribe now

It’s probably a bit cringe to write yourself a little poem for your birthday, but I have it on very good authority you stop giving a shit about what people think when you turn thirty.

Lucy, you’re turning thirty today. Congratulations, you survived it this far and you’re even mentally well adjusted enough to write a poem about it at 1am in your notes app. Slay, diva.

Right now, you’re thinking absently about the harder bits but trying to be hopeful about the next decade.

You’re stuck assessing the turbulent hazy girlhood of it all: the scraped knees from climbing a tree, the contact centres, CAFCASS workers, psychiatrists observing you play as they try to figure out if you’re defective and/or traumatised, police interviews like clockwork (the same questions - every time but all you really remember is the police woman who was really really pretty), painting my nails with the old lady next door, the woozy arguments and humid sugar highs before and after school discos.

And then, there’s the fight or flight survival mode which you still ebb in and out of depending on how calm and stable things are.

(No cannibals1 though, so that’s nice).

You think about how angry you were.

How that anger manifested as bad break ups, weekly dips of black hair dye, Avenge Sevenfold Discography on your MP3 player, embarrassing Facebook updates and heavy black eye liner amongst other things.

You think it’s scary that people wouldn’t recognise the you from that time because you’re so different now.

Good different.

But a part of you misses the ease at which anger manifested in your teenage years because now you’re older, all that anger is buried - equally unhealthy but at least your hair doesn’t feel like straw from Poundland box dye.

Repressed anger? A problem for therapy in your thirties like everyone else.

Now you’re thinking about your twenties instead, all the things you had to shed just to get there in one piece, the daily fight to just stay alive because GOD WHY IS IT SO HARD TO BE ALIVE?

This is what auto-pilot looks like:

Living and breathing and walking and eating your five a day and maintaining a social life, a gym membership (lmfao you failed at this one babe), a job, uni studies, therapy (my god, so much therapy, and just when you think you’re done with therapy, you actually realise you need more), going to sleep when you’re supposed to, trying to keep jobs and either walking out, not passing your probation or finally finding a job you actually love and being made redundant from it.

But you decide it’s okay because those are the years you figure out who you are without all of the bad stuff (and you fail at that too because you realise you aren’t you without the bad stuff and that’s okay).

You think about the fact you’re turning thirty today.

And you can’t believe it because midnight slipped by so effortlessly, without incident or turbulence.

You think about all the amazing friends you have (new and old) and how loved they make you feel.

God, you love your friends more than anything in the world.

And your cat, your sea side flat, even the local problem with the dock rats and your signature “I’m in my thirties™️ and I have a really bad back” back.

And don’t forget that career you worked really hard for too, because it’s nice that it’s going well (even if there’s parts of it you struggle with).

Lucy, babe, you’re fucking turning thirty.

And you can’t help but obsess over that one poem everyone loves. The one by Wendy Cope. The Orange.

You read it over and over again when you’re struggling with reasons to keep on keeping on.

And sometimes, you worry people will think it’s quite cringe that you like that poem, that it comforts you more than hot chocolate, exciting parcels with your name on and maybe even more than a really nice Walker’s cheese and onion crisp sandwich.

But it’s nice, isn’t it? What a perfectly normal, beautiful, mundane worry to have.

Because in spite of this massive as fuck, complicated (and hopefully ever growing) getting older worry list, Lucy, you’re turning thirty.

And it doesn’t matter if it’s cringe or not because, for once, you’re really, really fucking glad you exist.

I’m an over sharer, an anxious mess, an ex publishing professional, a screenwriter, short story writer, personal essayist and a novelist (The Lamb & more soon).

This is where I come to pass and receive nervous notes and be transparent about my writing and my wobbles. It’s part diary, part scrap book, but mostly a collection of extremely nervous notes scribbled down.

I don’t have a paywall (bar one handwritten letter I write to paid subscribers every year), but if you’d like to support me, there’s a paid subscription option with a couple of small perks.

Subscribe now

On January 1st, 2026, I sat down at my pop up sofa desk and started writing for the first time as a full time author1. Day one, I’m proud to report that I felt very whimsical about the whole thing, yet still underneath, I was dealing with quite a bit of imposter syndrome and simultaneously recovering from burn out2. It felt good to be sitting at a desk doing the thing I love, but it was clear from that first day: My body had to set the pace.

Slow and steady.

For transparency, my next deadline for this project is at the end of January, and I need to deliver a developmental edit for an ambitious and emotionally taxing/triggering second novel - easy, right?3

I’ve been working on this novel since 2023. It’s changed so much since that first initial draft, and I’ve loved discovering, expanding and exploring a very vibrant cast of characters (who I’ve fallen quite deeply in love with and have taken me on many a wild goose chase through the drafting process).

This month, while I’ve been knee deep in developmental edits, I’ve written from my bed, from the couch, on a snow day - anywhere but my desk. I’ve written to score and to up beat pop bangers4. I’ve written in stints on ‘On-Together’ app and to an 11 hour TLOU play through5. I’ve had good writing days and bad, days where I’ve added 3000 words to my draft, and the next day removed 3500. I’ve written to the glow of the television and a carefully selected set of background shows that now blur into one. I wept listening to Gibson Girl6 by Ethel Cain as I wrote a new opening scene, and then had an epiphany about what my novel is really about (3 years after starting it). Accepted that I might not meet my deadline because progress is slower than I anticipated. Gotten anxious about a crack in my wall because that’s more practical to be anxious about over my novel, right? I’ve made cuppa teas and ignored them until they went cold as I got lost in a scene, and chided myself pouring it out into the sink in order to make a new one. I’ve lost faith in myself and found it again.

This is the process of being a writer.

It is anything but clean. It’s messy, filled with self-doubt. Because am I ready enough to explore this idea? Is it too close to home? Can I be objective enough? Intimate enough? Am I doing it justice? Am I going deep enough? Am I taking it too far? Am I getting lost? Is it too strange? Will people think I’m depraved? Is there a cavity of emotional intellect I need to write this story which I just can’t access?7

I suppose the answer is that you’ll never know unless you write it.

Here’s some other things I did across January to ease the long and hard road of burn out recovery:

Drank tea from my thermos.

Refreshed my mantel with a different set up (see above).

Tried to take days off.

Got cat cuddles from Figgy.

Listened to music on my iPod and made playlists.

Read a few books. Found a new favourite that I’ll never forget.

Scribbled in my notebook and played with dialect.

Watched Traitors.

Enjoyed a snow day.

Listened to The Preacher’s Daughter on my iPod again and again and again.

Started a new honour run on Baldur’s Gate 38.

Won another chess game (but it was a close one this time).

Turned 30.

Let a fan tattoo some fan art on me.

Speaking of which, I got my first tattoo.

Re-joined a D&D group.

Lost a further four chess games.

Missed my writing deadline but still celebrated my 30th in style.

Shopped at my local independent bookshop.9

I’m an over sharer, an anxious mess, an ex publishing professional, a screenwriter, short story writer, personal essayist and a novelist (The Lamb & more soon).

This is where I come to pass and receive nervous notes and be transparent about my writing and my wobbles. It’s part diary, part scrap book, but mostly a collection of extremely nervous notes scribbled down.

I don’t have a paywall (bar one handwritten letter I write to paid subscribers every year), but if you’d like to support me, there’s a paid subscription option with a couple of small perks.

Subscribe now

It occurred to me that I only romanticised life last year as 2025 came to a close. Those last eight weeks felt magic (not because they were flawless or void of hardship - quite the contrary, in fact). Those weeks were filled with really hard life decisions, professional conflicts, troughs of deep anxiety and depression, but quite miraculously, somehow, I felt happy1. Not happy in a laughing-nonstop-until-my-belly-hurts-all-the-time sort of way, but in the humans-are-supposed-to-be-messy sort of way.

Humans crave simple, black-and-white, polarising pendulum swings where everything has a distinct, simple answer, but life happens in the middle where it’s messy and overlapping. But romanticisation isn’t a fix-all solution. It won’t make the ache disappear, because happiness isn’t clinical or sterile, and it certainly can’t be quantified the way we want it to2. It’s not free of mud, marks or bruises, and it never does as it’s told either. Instead, our fragile and somehow rebellious happiness persists in contrast with the bruises. That’s romantic to me.

With all that being said, these are the things I did and the imperfections I embraced that brought me the meaningful, quiet happiness I needed at the back end of 2025, and how romanticising those small, beautiful imperfections has made me “happier”. These are the things I hope to bring with my into the new year.

• In September, I had a difficult conflict in my professional life. I’ll spare you the gory details, but it has been beyond anxiety-inducing. Normally, confrontations paralyse me. I have a horrid habit of rolling over and accepting defeat for the sake of peace, but instead, I chose to grab uncomfortable with both hands. I’m making choices to be brave, to stand up for myself, to not let myself be bullied or folded up into something small or insignificant, and something surprising has happened: I found a spark wrapped inside discomfort. By somehow embracing those emotional bruises, I am stronger. So, note to self: sometimes, the best thing you can do for your inner peace is to do the exact opposite of peace. It is to accept that something is painful and uncomfortable in the short term, because the long term might be kinder. We can’t avoid conflicts forever. How we respond to them tells us who we are.

• I’ve made things instead of bought them. There is an eternal satisfaction in working hard and earning something rather than buying it (and bonus: you save some pennies). Even though my crafting has been imperfect, I have felt fulfilled. The hole in my chest is smaller and less dark. Specifically, I wanted to buy some sheet music for my new office nook (which lives in a corner of my living room). Instead of buying it, I made it instead. I cut it to size. I coffee-stained it. I crinkled it. I made the paper feel loved and used and passed down. In a similar vein, I’ve fully committed to trading in streaming (music and film/TV). For the last few months, I’ve lived in charity shops, collecting countless DVDs and Blu-rays, and CDs. I’ve decided to start owning my media again instead of leasing it from rental sites or streaming services. I’ve spent hours ripping CDs and putting music onto my iPod. And, spoiler, but I don’t miss Spotify Wrapped at all. There was no grief.

• I swapped out my phone for IRL hangouts. So many of my friends are long distance, which made this really difficult, but I had a gorgeous long weekend with my friend who came to visit from down south. We committed to making our own manufactured Christmas break, reenacted Christmas Day gift-giving and Boxing Day rot. We watched Strictly and gave our own scores on whiteboards. We snuggled with blankets and ate chocolate, and had an indulgent Christmas dinner at my local pub. It was gorgeous. I barely checked my phone. It was cheap and cheerful over aesthetically pleasing, but I haven’t felt that whole in months.

• Doing the thing I want instead of the thing I should - yep! When I was on my lovely Christmas break with my beloved friend, we’d promised ourselves we’d do a big walk to a local beach where we’d get fresh sea air and inspiration for some forthcoming projects we’re working on. However, when the moment came to go, we both looked at each other and smiled (because we’ve gotten to the stage of an unspoken language in our friendship). We hit the couch, hid under our blankets, put on some terrestrial TV, and hunkered down with our books. Was it lazy? Maybe. But was it an absolutely delightful day that I really needed? Yes.

• Late November also came with a scary life decision: I quit my job and accepted financial strain in exchange for my health. After a year of hustling like you cannot believe (an 11-month book tour, book 2 deadlines, screenwriting deadlines, a whole career in publishing, managing chronic illness and autism and burnout and MORE), I decided enough was enough - a choice I’d been putting off because I’m, quite frankly, terrified of returning to financial instability. I’m quite open about my fraught relationship to money and security, and how much of a challenge it has been for me to find it, and so letting go of that stability so I can be healthy has been an enormously terrifying life decision. Sure, there will be difficult days, but when your body is calling you stop, you must listen. Choosing myself, even with the inevitable anxiety and discomfort around the corner - that’s quite romantic, actually.

• Embracing imperfections has been big for me. My last gift to myself before I go back into my frugal era was buying myself a chess set, but the one I’d found had come slightly marred. And the same weekend, I’d settled for a cheaper corkboard (instead of the vintage one with the brambles tile and the extortionate shipping fee - the one I truly coveted). The corkboard came a little bit broken and the frame wobbles when it’s nudged even slightly, but at least the imperfections belong to me. Normally, I need everything to be perfect, stable, safe but mending these items, being their keeper, I’ve promised myself will become a personal long-term project (something I haven’t had in a decade because I’ve been so focused on career success I’d forgotten I could even have personal projects with low stakes). A ceramic Christmas present from a loved one came broken in pieces, and I took great care to fix it (we made a day of it - it was fun). I feel lucky to have a roof over my head, and to have things to fill the space and make it feel like mine. Some might say the bar is low, but to me, this is precious.

What I’ve realised is that when life moves too quickly, there is quite literally not enough time to relish in it. This isn’t a particularly profound observation. In fact, many books, films, stories and proverbs exist to prove this exact thesis (and have done for centuries). But now, more than ever, it matters that we hold autonomy over every decision, every choice, every second - even the ones we spend doing nothing. In a culture where our time has become a commodity and a kind of currency, our truest agency is simply this: choosing how we use the little time we get.

Every second you spend scrolling is precious to capitalism. After all, you could use those three seconds to look at an ad for something a company promises will fix your life or fill the depression void. Capitalism and extreme ad culture promises you happiness and prosperity if you just buy this product, but I promise you with certainty that happiness comes in the breaths between.

The reflections.

The quiet hand squeezes on the couch while you watch the telly.

The dinners you spend with friends.

The first steps you take in the snow before it ices over. The crunch of it beneath your boot.

The in-jokes you develop only through spending far too much time with your designated other.

The small rifts you’re able to mend after enough time has passed.

In the quiet when the noise ceases and you’re able to listen to the sound of the weather.

When the phone is in the drawer.

When you marvel at simple weather like it’s the first time you’ve seen the sun or the rain, because wow, aren’t puddles actually quite beautiful and doesn’t that warm sunspot on your calf feel comforting to you?

When you let yourself belly laugh at a childish joke so much it hurts.

When you forget, just for a moment, that phones even exist because you’re so caught up in the game of UNO or cocktails or the novel you can’t put down.

That is where life happens. And that is romantic as fuck.

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I’m an over sharer, an anxious mess, an ex publishing professional, a screenwriter, short story writer, personal essayist and a novelist (The Lamb & more soon).

This is where I come to pass and receive nervous notes and be transparent about my writing and my wobbles. It’s part diary, part scrap book, but mostly a collection of extremely nervous notes scribbled down.

I don’t have a paywall (bar one handwritten letter I write to paid subscribers every year), but if you’d like to support me, there’s a paid subscription option with a couple of small perks.

Subscribe now

Filling your cup is just as important as drinking from it.

This year has been one of the hardest so far in terms of the career challenges. While I’ve (somehow) found more success than ever before, I’ve also been pushed beyond my comfort zone and confronted the limitations of my mental and physical health. I’d always planned for December to be quiet (which is less than ideal because in November I didn’t get a lot of writing done either), but I hadn’t realised, until now, just how important filling your cup really is and why it works.

Instead of panicking and changing the plan in a last ditch attempt to have more editing time, and despite having that terrifying looming deadline, it’s never been more important for me to prioritise my well-being and stick to the plan of resting meaningfully. So December’s writing habits have been exactly as intended: a little bit slow. I know myself, and I find when I do something exhaustedly, I do it half as well and without fail, the one certainty is that I always end up having to do the work again to better it - but now all my hope of resting time squandered on a failure to launch and a bad first attempt.

So I’m learning from my past mistakes (yay, growth!). I embrace the power of thinking time, which for many writers is a constant battle to justify or decipher whether or not it actually counts as real writing time – I’m now deciding definitely that it does in fact count as writing time.

I let ideas percolate and gave myself distance from a project I’m struggling with. I worked on layering edits in a screenplay I’m developing (with an awesome director), and schedule sent it for the New Year. I glanced at my notebook and felt the urge to pick up a pen and stop being lazy, but then chided myself for almost caving out of shame.

For better or for worse, in my stubbornness, I’m using this break to get myself back to where I’m supposed to be. By the time January comes, I’ll hopefully feel myself again.

When the moment took me, I opened my notebook and started writing a short story for an horror anthology, and because I didn’t push myself or force it… magic happened. While writing my new character Piggy (cue gothic The Yellow Wallpaper inspired horror story about fat phobia), good writing I’m proud of came from my fingertips. I wrote about things that are important to me. Things that have impacted me. I felt calm and safe enough to be vulnerable with the page (which is something I struggle with the more people discover my writing).

For the last year, I’ve been under a microscope (which has been a new challenge for me as someone previously floating in online obscurity). For some reason, I have a feeling that when January comes around, and when my manuscript can become my sole focus, it’ll feel safe enough to tread the terrifyingly vulnerable and soft ground of my Word document. Maybe I won’t get that scary fight-or-flight feeling that’s become familiar whenever I’ve thought about the challenges that lie hidden within the manuscript pages.

So: December has been quiet in words written, but I feel my spark coming back. I’ve never felt more ready to tackle this unwieldy story than I do right now. When I’m fully rested and ready to go, I’ll be optimistic about hitting the ground running for 2026.

Here’s some ways I filled my cup in December:

Re-watched a few of my favourite TV shows and films.

Read a book very slowly, instead of rushing through it for productivity’s sake.

Cooked meals from scratch and enjoyed every bite.

Played chess and lost.

Spent time with friends in ways that counted.

Said I love you at least 12 times to the people I love (and not in a passing love you kinda way).

Angry-wrote a short story after being hurt by someone.

Shopped local.

Bought a book on playing chess.

Had multiple Christmas dinners with my favourite people.

Had the most amazing lie-in and didn’t feel guilty about it.

Napped under a warm blanket while it rained outside.

Ignored my emails for a weekend.

Went to my leaving party at work.

Bought the best gift for a secret Santa and felt smug about it.

Coffee stained sheet music for my desk space.

Thrifted an old cork board.

Found some vintage art post cards.

Made things with my bare hands and crafted items from scratch to decorate my desk.

Went to visit the seawater at least twice.

Won a couple of chess games.

I’m an over sharer, an anxious mess, an ex publishing professional, a screenwriter, short story writer, personal essayist and a novelist (The Lamb & more soon).

This is where I come to pass and receive nervous notes and be transparent about my writing and my wobbles. It’s part diary, part scrap book, but mostly a collection of extremely nervous notes scribbled down.

I don’t have a paywall (bar one handwritten letter I write to paid subscribers every year), but if you’d like to support me, there’s a paid subscription option with a couple of small perks.

Subscribe now

Thank you so much for this question from Rosalind<3

I often find myself wondering if Mary Shelley would have been just as scared of being perceived as I am on the Internet.

The digital world is a vast and frightening place I often find myself comparing to a Ouija board because when you open ‘the door’, you truly don’t know who you’re letting in. When you put content out there to be viewed, judged, consumed and engaged with, you don’t get to choose who connects with you.

In that way, it’s much like horror movie.

As an author in the current landscape of publishing, it seems impossible to avoid the digital world and all of the sparkly potential it offers for needle-moving book sales and Cinderella-style, career-changing, online magic marketing moments.

I’m Lucy Rose. My debut came out earlier this year, and I (like many of you) am deeply afraid of being perceived.

There’s a misconception that if you get a book deal with a big 5 publisher that you don’t have to do any marketing. While for the very privileged few, this is true (they have enormous teams of publicists and marketing professionals putting up billboards and getting their book into every broadsheet in existence) it’s not the case for most writers. This is often linked to how much you were acquired for by the publishing house and how much value they’ve assigned to your book, but it’s also to do with what kind of book you’re publishing and what kind of specific publicity and marketing campaign is right for finding your specific reader.

For example, with my book, I never thought I’d find my core readership hidden in the coveted review pages of the TLS - I think, it’s more likely for my literary horror novel, that I would find my readership hidden in the coves of niche online communities and through in-person events and community book spaces.

Recently, Richard Osmand (no shade Rich) said on a podcast that the best way for authors to sell books was to go into book shops and engage with readers. While I believe this is true to a small degree, it’s much easier to do that when you’re a national celebrity with a major platform (as well as a huge marketing and publicity campaign behind your writing and brand). If you don’t have a huge marketing and publicity campaign behind your writing, your way to build that community and draw those readers to the book shop is probably to find them online1 (see caveat in footnotes).

Here’s my experience

When I got my book deal, I had no platform. I had maybe 1000 followers on Instagram, a couple thousand followers on TikTok where I was trapped in a view prison of about 300 per video, and a chronic anxiety disorder which meant I was deeply afraid of being perceived but somehow found myself oversharing everything. I was not a polished, media-trained social media darling or influencer. I just really, really wanted to find my crowd (mentally ill, horror-obsessed, autistic weirdos who like cats – just like me).

There’s already a million Substack articles on how to curate the perfect TikTok presence and blogs that will tell you exactly how to become a viral sensation – this is not that sub stack article.

Instead, I’m going talk about how I look after myself when I’m navigating the world online and how I create meaningful boundaries between this digital online space I curate and my very real (sometimes banal) ordinary life.

1. If you’re not enjoying social media don’t do it.

The energy and time you possess is so precious (especially in 2025 where so many people are burning the candle at both ends, often working multiple gigs just to get by). Your time is more precious than anything in this world. If you are not enjoying social media, my advice is to either step away or choose one platform to do really, really well rather than spreading yourself too thin across multiple platforms.

2. Bad social media is worse than no social media at all.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by social media and sense your content is not engaging people, your time is better spent doing actual writing and potentially other forms of marketing (such as more localised community marketing or networking with local book shops). But I’ve learned over the years that a bad social media presence is much worse than having no presence at all online.

3. The more you do it the easier it gets.

I struggled with social media at first and felt unconfident in front of the camera. I was afraid to be genuinely authentic because I’d seen sociopathic trolls and cyber bullies hiding in the comment sections of other videos that came up on my feed. But it does get easier the more you do it. It is an act of courage and defiance to be vulnerable and sincerely yourself in 2025. That feeling of discomfort you might have on camera and the anxiety you have pressing ‘post’ will fade and you’ll be a regular Claudia Winkleman level of nonchalant and confident before you know it.

4. The emotions!

If you’re ever feeling overwhelmed by being perceived, I’ve learned to accept that it’s a normal base animal feeling that we get as human beings. Before you erase your digital footprint and wipe yourself from the face of the internet, take a deep breath. Your footprint matters (cue “The Drag Path” song). This feeling you’re having is a little signal your brain is giving you to slow down and step away from the Internet for a beat. That is your body telling you that you are feeling uneasy and unwell, and that your mental health needs to come first. You don’t actually want to disappear. You just need a break.

5. Have real grounding anchors if you are too consumed by apps.

If you find yourself scrolling and hours have passed, turn off your phone, hide it in a drawer, step outside and take a walk. I’ve taken to engaging deeply in my community spaces (with ambition behind it to make myself feel like it’s a real pursuit). I’m passionate about supporting my local independent book shop and my local independent cafes. The mindset of moving away from commercialism, capitalism, and this idea of “anti-community” through consumerism (whether that’s consuming content or products), has helped me actively to un-isolate myself from the real world and the real relationships that support me and keep me steadfast.

6. Set boundaries.

I’ve met so many lovely people in the online spaces I’ve lived in, but I have a strict no bullshit rule around bullying and threatening behaviour. If somebody sends me rude or threatening messages, they get blocked within a second. I’ll never forget my first week of publication for my debut novel when someone on Instagram sent me relentless pictures of straitjackets because they didn’t like my book along with weird and threatening messages. At first, I was confused about whether it was unprofessional of me to block this interaction and if it would damage my ‘brand’ (whatever tf that is). Ultimately, we’re allowed to protect our peace – that is why the app has that functionality in the first place. If anybody is abusive or threatening to me online, which does happen unfortunately (more than you’d think), they are blocked straight away. The Internet is the Wild West, the rules are fast and loose, the legislation is very little and often comes with very little consequence for abusive behaviour: but you don’t have to put up with it.

7. One day at a time.

My last piece of advice is this: take it one day at a time. If you’re feeling confident one day and want to put yourself out there, make the most of it, create lots of content, schedule it so you have a fail safe for the days you may feel more anxious and self-conscious.

So, do I think that Mary Shirley would be anxious about being online? God, yes. She’d have a quiet Tumblr blog where she’d reblog gif sets from My Chemical Romance music videos, she’d occasionally post a literary hot take about the term weird girl lit or femgore (just like the rest of us), and she’d probably end up saying something that she’d later regret - and later realise she probably should have vented in a safe WhatsApp group chat instead - as does every 19 year old (and older) on the Internet.

The digital world is hard to navigate and the second we stop pretending that it isn’t, hopefully the easier it will become to process. Marketing in the digital world can move mountains and it can shift the needle, but it’s not the most important thing.

It’s actually the third most important thing.

The second most important thing is the book, the words you are writing, the stories you are telling.

And the most important thing in the whole world is you.

Take care out there.