I wrote a very honest piece on the realities of working from home for one of my favourite book blogs, Short Books and Scribes

I used to love working in an office. The routine of the working year, the predictability of meetings and leaving do’s. Colleagues, who were only ever a door away to chat, give feedback, dole out sympathy or slope off for a sneaky coffee when the going got tough.

Imagine my gaping shock, ahem, surprise when I suddenly found myself sitting at my desk, all alone at home. No sound of incessant telephone ringing, no mates giving a cheerful wave across the open-space office, no one to talk to once the school run was done. I had left the workforce rather reluctantly when my husband was seconded abroad, the only silver lining being that I would now finally have the time to develop some of the writing ideas I’d been toying with for a while. That silver lining had to sustain me for a good long time, because even well into what would eventually become My Mother’s Shadow, part of me was still mourning that busy, bustly, noisy office life I’d left behind: the sense of belonging; of having a place to go with a clear purpose every morning; of life being divided between working vs non-working time; of external validation.

Truth is, being a writer can be a rather solitary business and working from home… READ ON HERE