Spinning around..
It is, to my shame, six months since I last wrote a blog post. And that, my friends, is a symptom of a much bigger issue.
I’ve always preferred to be busy – I come from a family where everyone was always DOING things, and idleness was a crime on a par with leaving a dirty cereal bowl under your bed. I’m generally quite organised and better at keeping multiple plates spinning than most – in fact, multitasking and ticking stuff off lists gives me a weird thrill. I also live with a man who throws open the curtains at 5am and rarely sits down thereafter. Doing nothing is not really in my DNA.
But my plates have started to wobble, and that comes with a whole host of other issues that I haven’t really had to deal with before – feeling anxious and overwhelmed, doubting myself, not making time for the people I care about, lack of focus on diet and exercise, crappy sleep…basically all the hits.
So over Christmas I made a decision – by my birthday (end of June, and this year it’s a big one), I’d have decided which of the plates to lay to rest for good, from this list of four quite big plates – my day job, my books, my Strictly liveblogs and my work with Eurovision. All quite hefty plates, no? Here’s how the thinking went:
My job. I mean, it’s an interesting thought, but I work four days a week as a Strategy Partner at a marketing agency and that very much pays the bills. My other writing work pays for the fun stuff, but my job pays actual proper money in a way the others definitely do not. Also I’ve spent 25 years building my career, and I really love what I do. And (forgive me for blowing my own trumpet here), I’m really fucking good at it. So this was an easy plate decision – the job stays. Move on.
My books. If working for a marketing agency is the reality, being an author was always the dream, since I was a kid writing stories and getting my family to check them out of my pretend library. And through a combination of fate and lockdown madness and sheer determination, I made it happen in my late 40s. My fourth book is out next month, and I’m currently in negotiation over publishing my fifth next year. It doesn’t pay a lot (welcome to the world of commercial fiction in 2023), but for me it’s a long game, and a potential retirement plan that might help to offset my disastrous lack of any kind of pension. Also when I published my first book in 2021, I promised myself I’d give it five years. We’re only two years in, so that plate has to stay too.
My other writing. So here we are. Strictly or Eurovision? Eurovision or Strictly? They’re quite different propositions, but actually take up a similar amount of time overall and pay a similar amount of money. Eurovision is full time for two weeks in the host city in May, but actually consumes quite a lot of thinking, planning and listening time in the few months running up to the contest. it’s full on but great fun, and working as part of the official Eurovision digital team gives me incredible access to a contest I really love. It’s a dream job, even though I come back totally broken every year.
Meanwhile Strictly is spread out over 13 weekends in the autumn – it’s easier in lots of ways because I can do it from my sofa, but preparing each weekend takes a lot of time and obviously massively impacts my social life for a quarter of the year. But again it’s a labour of love, and I’ve spent 13 years growing a simple liveblog into a really special community of fans who occupy one of the few remaining corners of the internet that isn’t a toxic cesspit.
It wasn’t an easy decision, and at times it felt like choosing my favourite child. But in the end I decided that, after 13 years liveblogging Strictly for The Guardian, it’s time to let it go. It’s been an absolute joy and a privilege, and has opened so many doors for me professionally. But I can do a lot with all those autumn weekends, and maybe it’s time for someone else to put their own spin on the liveblog.
I hope it continues, and the Strictly fan community continues to thrive. I will of course be watching, but maybe like a normal person, with both eyes on the TV. Or on iPlayer, over breakfast. Or with friends, eating snacks from plates that aren’t spinning any more.
I will miss it, of course, but it’s the right time. And I’ll definitely keeeep writing.