Tuesday, September 3, 2019

Welcome to my blogging world

Joining the Blogosphere

Finally, after years of penning blogs for other people, I've decided to join the throng and create my own space in which to witter.

I'm not entirely sure what I will write about, nor how often I might feel the urge to scribble and post.


My topic might be work-related, or it might not. It may well be a combination of life and work, given that for a freelance, domestic upheaval or interruptions can definitely impact professional endeavours. As for work–life balance … well, after eleven years of freelancing, it's improving, but there are still phases of total mayhem, usually denoted by an increase in my caffeine consumption and the laundry piling up.

Where do Authors fit in?

But what remains constant when things go slightly awry? How do I manage to stick my head back into a text when everything else is falling apart? Is it the encroaching deadline? Admittedly, that can certainly motivate me into action, but not always.

Actually, it would have to be my authors or a few choice publishing contacts with whom I have worked for a while.


In the midst of the most seemingly insurmountable stress, be they professional or domestic, I'm sure I could be forgiven for finding the demands of my clients a little irksome. And yet, time and again, just when things appear to have nowhere to go but down, several clients, who have since become friends — some of whom I have even met in person! – have a tendency to keep me sane.

They make me laugh with deliberately ridiculous requests via email; get in touch just to see how I am or to bemoan their lack of creative output; invite me for a long overdue coffee and cake outing; detail their own domestic catastrophes with self-deprecating humour; and promise me (yet again) that their text is on its way (you know who you are).

Whoever they are, whatever their reason for getting in touch, they nearly always instill me with a little bit more energy to plough through the chaos beyond my desk and refocus my attention.

Books are the thing

So, armed with another bucketful of coffee and the prospect of a few really interesting books to work on in the coming months, things are more or less ticking over, providing a welcome distraction from the sometimes unwanted and inconvenient hiccups of real life.


Inspiration, please

And as I sit at my desk, gazing at the drizzle-obscured view of Edinburgh Castle across the Forth, and ponder what to write in my first blog, should you have any particular requests or topics you would like me to cover, on all things editorial or vaguely of that ilk, just let me know.