Sometimes when people move house, they are still surrounded by boxes months later. It all feels too much. They can’t seem to reorganise their bits and bobs in this strange environment. It’s safer to leave them all packed away.
I haven’t moved house now for two decades, but I think I must be that kind of person. I hate all the disruption, the sorting, the packing. But sometimes you have to be brave. Last year I was living with a webhost who seemed incapable of protecting me from spam emails. It had gone on as long as I could remember. And it was getting worse.
I was lucky enough to find a friendly IT consultant who gave me the courage to leave. They found me a new provider and helped me to keep hold of my email address. But I abandoned my website. I just wanted to run away from it all.
For months and months all visitors saw on my new website was the friendly notice ‘under construction’. Which was, until recently, a bit of a lie. I’d pencilled a list of useful links on a piece of yellow scrap paper and tucked it under my computer screen. I’d kept the list, despite several reorganizations including a new computer and a new standing desk. Every so often I would look at it, wonder about contacting my computer friend again, sigh and slide it back to the bottom of my other to-do lists.
What made me get a grip? I went to the 2025 Writing East Midlands Conference in Lincoln. And decided that this can’t go on. I need to rebuild my website and tell my story. And I am so grateful to all the writers, editors, publishers and poets who, through a hundred or so little conversations, made me realise something.
I can do it.