A Peek Into My Writing Journey

I did not set out to write a book.

There was no grand plan, no elegant moment of inspiration, no candle lit desk where I suddenly decided to become the sort of woman who writes memoirs. My writing journey began in a far less glamorous way, which in hindsight feels entirely appropriate.

It started at a friend’s party, with me telling one more disastrous dating story.

You know the kind. The sort of story that makes people howl with laughter, lean in for more, and say, “No, stop, you are joking,” while clearly hoping you are not. By that point, I had built up a small but unfortunate archive of awful dates, bizarre messages, baffling behaviour and encounters so ridiculous they sounded fictional. Except they were not fictional. They were my real life.

Everyone was laughing.

I was laughing too.

But underneath the laughter was a thought I could not shake.

This is my life.

That was the strange thing about that chapter of my life. On the outside, it was comedy gold. On the inside, it was chaos, heartbreak, confusion, and the exhausting reality of trying to start again when I had never planned to. I had become the woman with the funny stories, but I was also the woman living them. And those are not quite the same thing.

One of my friends said, “You need to write this down.”

What struck me was that the idea was already there, quietly circling.

The night before, I had been with another girlfriend who was also online dating, and we had spent hours comparing stories. We were laughing at the absurdity of it all, swapping screenshots and tales of modern romance gone sideways, and saying how these stories were too good to disappear into private group chats. They felt like the beginnings of something. A book, maybe. A podcast. At the very least, a cautionary tale for women brave enough to re enter the dating world with their optimism still hanging on by a thread.

At the time, it was just one of those throwaway comments friends make when something feels funny and true.

But later, in the cab home from that party, it stopped feeling like a joke.

There is something about being alone in a cab after a night out that makes everything feel more honest. The noise has died down. The laughter is behind you. You are left with your own thoughts and the odd little silence that follows a full evening. I remember sitting there thinking about the notes I had already written, the messages I had saved, the stories I kept retelling, and wondering whether there was something bigger in all of it.

Not just a collection of bad dates.

A story.

A real one.

Because what I was living was not only about dating. It was about rebuilding. It was about trying to make sense of life after divorce. It was about figuring out who I was when the version of life I thought I was living had fallen apart. It was about trying to be a steady mother, a functioning adult and a vaguely optimistic human being, while also navigating emotional wreckage, practical chaos and men who thought saying “How r u hun” counted as meaningful connection.

Once I let myself think of it as a book, I could not stop.

I became completely hooked.

Over the next few months, I wrote for hours at a time. What started as a few stories and scraps of observations quickly grew into something much larger. I found myself going back through memories, reshaping conversations, piecing together patterns, reordering chapters and working out how to turn the mess into a narrative. Some days I was writing because it was exciting. Other days I was writing because I needed to. Because getting it onto the page was one of the only ways to make sense of it.

And what emerged was not just funny.

It was funny, yes. Genuinely, properly funny in places. Midlife dating can be gloriously absurd. There is something surreal about entering that world carrying all the weight of lived experience, a child, a home to run, a heart that has already been knocked about, and still somehow ending up opposite a man who thinks a first date is the perfect time to talk at length about himself while chewing with his mouth open.

There were moments in the writing where I laughed out loud remembering them.

But there were also moments where I had to stop.

Because behind the comedy was grief.

Behind the punchlines was disappointment.

Behind the ridiculous stories was a woman trying to work out how she had ended up here at all.

That was the truth I wanted the book to hold. Not just the funny side of dating disasters, but the ache underneath them. The vulnerability. The strange loneliness of being newly single in midlife. The way heartbreak does not arrive neatly, and neither does healing. The way you can be devastated and still need to answer emails, do the school run, speak to builders, keep a house going and function as if nothing is splintering behind your ribs.

There is no graceful version of starting over.

You do not get a soundtrack and a montage.

You cry, then make dinner. You panic, then find someone’s PE kit. You question everything, then reply to a practical text about tiles or invoices or timings. Life keeps moving, even when you would quite like it to pause and give you a minute.

As I kept writing, I found myself reaching further back too. I started reflecting on my parents and the example they gave me of what love is supposed to look like. That became an important thread in the story, because when your own life has unravelled, you start examining the models you grew up with. You start asking yourself what love looked like to you when you were young. What felt safe. What felt normal. What shaped your expectations in the first place.

I wanted that in the book because it mattered.

I did not want to write only about men on dating apps and awkward coffees. I wanted to write about the bigger question underneath it all, which was this: what does good love actually look like? What should it feel like? What should it never feel like?

That question mattered not only because of me, but because of my son.

So much of this journey has had him at its centre. I want him to grow up understanding that love should not be confrontational, cruel or abusive. It should not make you afraid. It should not make home feel unsafe. I want him to know that love should feel kind, respectful, calm and steady. I want him to become a good human not simply because he is told what that looks like, but because he has lived close enough to recognise the difference.

That part was hard to write. It still is.

Because beneath all the laughter and the chaos and the absurdity, there was something very tender driving the whole thing. I was not only trying to tell entertaining stories. I was trying to turn a painful chapter of my life into something honest. Something meaningful. Something that might make another woman laugh, yes, but also feel seen. Something that might say, in its own slightly sweary way, you are not the only one who has lived through this madness.

At some point, I knew I needed trusted eyes on it, so I gathered my critic crew. Four brilliantly wonderful female friends who read the book, encouraged me, challenged me, gave me notes and helped me make it stronger. Handing your work over is vulnerable enough. Handing over something that draws so heavily on your real life is another level entirely. It feels slightly like saying, here is my emotional damage, do let me know if the pacing works.

But they were brilliant.

They saw what the book could be and helped me shape it. They pointed out where I could go deeper, where I could sharpen a line, where I could be braver, funnier or more honest. Their support meant everything, because writing can feel lonely, but being read well is one of the greatest gifts.

With their help, I layered even more into the book. More of the divorce madness. More of the house renovation. More of the emotional and practical reality of trying to rebuild a life while literally rebuilding a home for my son and me.

That part feels important too, because none of it happened in neat separate boxes. I was not simply dating. I was parenting, grieving, renovating, surviving and starting over all at once. One minute I was dealing with heartbreak, the next I was dealing with dust, delays, leaks, costs, chaos and a kitchen that seemed personally offended by the concept of being level.

In many ways, the house mirrored exactly how I felt.

Under construction.

Still standing, but only just in places.

Messy, expensive, exhausting, hopeful, fragile and full of unfinished parts.

And somehow, through all of that, the book kept growing.

Eventually, it moved from being a private project to something real. Something with a shape. A title. A voice. A future beyond my laptop. Then came the cover, which I spent hours crafting because I wanted it to feel right. I wanted it to reflect the spirit of the book, the humour, the heart, the chaos and the honesty. I created the accompanying Spotify playlist because the whole journey had a soundtrack in my mind and I loved the idea of the book feeling immersive, personal and alive beyond the page.

And then came the final leap.

The moment of letting it go.

The moment of sending it out into the world and putting it on Amazon, which was both thrilling and terrifying in equal measure. There is something deeply strange about taking the rawest, funniest, saddest pieces of your life and packaging them into a book that strangers can buy with one click. One minute it is yours. The next minute it belongs, in part, to anyone who picks it up.

That is a vulnerable thing.

But it is also a beautiful one.

Because what began as friends laughing at my disastrous dating life became something far more meaningful than I ever expected. It became a way of reclaiming my story. A way of making sense of pain. A way of finding humour in places that once only hurt. A way of proving to myself that even the most chaotic chapters can still produce something honest, hopeful and worth sharing.

Writing this book did not just help me tell the story of what happened.

It helped me survive it.

And maybe that is the real heart of my writing journey. Not the moment I decided to write a book, but the moment I realised that even in the middle of heartbreak, upheaval and absolute romantic nonsense, I still had a voice. I could still create. I could still laugh. I could still build something new from the rubble.

And this time, it would be mine.

I just want to add... This all came about because I read a tweet from a fellow author and they inspired me to tell this part of my story. If you follow me on X you can see the conversation thread and my thanks to Harley James.