Show 14: the rom-com author on combining work, children and coffee...
“I can’t believe how well writing works with children: you can work from home, you can choose your own hours, and you’re your own boss. I’m so lucky.
I think babies make you more focused. I realise now where all the time went. When I was in my twenties, I was going out all the time to book parties which was all very new and exciting at the time, whereas now I have to be very careful: children under three and hangovers do not mix, at all.
Because I had an office job for a long time, I’m not very good at sitting at a desk, so everything tends to end up in bed. But I keep lots of notebooks around, and I try to keep notes running and things ticking over. The problem is that I’ve got one by my bed, and I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and think “Brilliant! I’ve solved it!”, and I write something down and I look at it in the morning and it’s just gibberish…
Editing is my least favourite job. I always buy a new red pen. It’s just like being a teacher. The worst is when I score out the whole page and put ‘insert’ at the top, which means “This was rubbish. You’ve got to completely rewrite it”.
Most of the work, the real stuff goes on outside the house. You need to find a coffee shop you like to work in; somewhere the staff are nice. For me, it really helps to get out of the house, to leave, to feel I’m going to work. Sometimes the staff even take my son away for twenty minutes or so, whereupon I have to type as fast as I can. In here, I have my coffee, and I can really focus and just get on with writing my 1,000 words. Then I get to spend the rest of the day playing with the babies…”