Jo’s Writing Journey
Hi there Lovely Folks,
I’m known to everyone as Jo, and (the same as Sarah,) I am many things; Wife, Mum, Daughter, Friend, the list goes on. But if you peel back the layers of my onion far enough, you’ll hit a well of words. Words that clamber all over each other to become poems and journal entries, and lists… soooo many lists. But mainly, stories. Stories about people, love, friendship and often with a little magic thrown in.
I’m fairly sure that my writer-origin-story is the same as many of you; I’ve always written, ever since I was small. Pencilled words on pages torn from a spiral-bound notepad, that I’d staple back together to make my own pretend books. Little-me would hide them, tuck them away. They were my treasures, my escape from a childhood that wasn’t easy.
It seemed naïve as a teenager, to think I could actually be a writer. And even though, as an adult, I still scribbled my stories on the backs of envelopes, or in a notebook I kept out of sight in my handbag. I never felt like it was a wish I could say out-loud. It wasn’t until my son was born in 2002, that I realised writing wasn’t something I did, it was a part of the patchwork of who I was.
Writing is a much a part of me as my children, and my need to wander in the woods and along the beach.
And it was in the winter of 2002, when my son was a tiny three-month-old, that I did not fall into bed in an exhausted Mum-haze. But on a Wednesday night from 8pm, I’d sit in the study… (this is code language for the hallway, as our Compaq Presario ME – going old skool now – sat on a little table under the stairs,) and write. It was the first time I’d ever consciously started something, with even an inkling that I might be intending on finishing.
I showed no one, and I told no one, except the Husband. And I kept going. It was slow, and exciting – and frightening. And mine. I was creating an escape that I keenly wanted someone to get joy from. Like I had in my younger years. I was doing something that I wanted to do every day – that I still want to do every day.
In 2005 I fell for my twins, and by winter of that year I had three children under three, and chaos is no understatement. The writing didn’t halt, but it did get much, muccchhh slower. And for the next few years, the tapping of the keys stayed at that pace. And I feel it’s important to say that I still hadn’t finished a project. In efforts to be kind to myself, I’d written myself into a corner on the first go, and the second attempt met the same end. And this experience is so important to how we learn our craft. And I wouldn’t change any part of it.
In 2010 my son was at school, and my girls were just starting, and I decided that even with a part-time job I still didn’t have enough to do. So I applied to University, still not fully ready to commit to my writing, I applied for a Bachelor of Arts in History and Creative Writing; you know, because the history-part would enable me to get a proper career job... (anyone reading this with a humanities degree, feel free to make all the fun you like, I deserve it.) Putting on the cap and gown for graduation day in 2013, is my proudest personal achievement. I’d studied, and written, and panicked, and read books I could never imagine picking up. And over the course of that winter, something clicked.
By the summer of 2016 I’d signed with a small independent publisher, and in November 2016 a handful of us who wrote for them, met for the first time in a pub called The Banker, on the shores of the Thames. And I met a woman who was destined to become the bestest friend a girl could ever ask for.
Jo x
(Just FYI, the small humans are MUCH bigger than this now. But they won’t mind me sharing this one ;) )
