I'm dating again

LJW is officially open for romantic business (!!!)

👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼 Hi! Long story short: I’m a bestselling novelist who started investigating how to build a life in August 2024, because despite my supposed dream career I wasn’t ~vibing~ in the way I wanted to be. I felt like something was missing? Unpicking what it takes to build a life (like, a good one) led me to taking a job in a high school, just to see. Turns out books light up my brain but pastoral work with teenagers feeds my soul, so now I might be in the middle of a career change. I don’t know. I’m currently studying children and young people’s mental health, whilst also promoting my latest rom-com Love at First Sight. (I’ll next be at Love Stories Festival Manchester in July!) Apparently I contain multitudes. Don’t we all?

I’m proud to say that Grazia magazine once declared that I am a ‘general all-round-speaker of what-is-in-our-heads’, Stylist said my honesty and voice are unique, I was Marie Claire’s #BreakFree from Fear Ambassador many moons ago, and I’m a ‘Happiness Expert’ according to The Independent. I’m almost 40, a solo parent by choice, and I truly believe on going all in on the adventure of your own life. Knowing all this means you’re all caught up. WELCOME!!

STOP! PRESS! If you have had a career change in order to get more balance in your life, or if you have noticed a downward shift in your sense of ambition in general, please can you tell me about it? I am collecting answers here. THANK YOU!

Dating!

Notice I didn’t say: dating, full stop.

Or dating, question mark.

I said, dating, exclamation point! Because your girl is here, she is excited, she is being intentional. I’m dating again!

As a parent, I have been on the apps sometimes. But historically it’s been a dud, and I haven’t had my whole heart in it, and that’s probably because I didn’t really know what I was looking for. I guess I was snooping around, seeing what was out there as information? I’d always last 24-hours and then delete them again. Everything seemed so… not for me. I just want to meet somebody in real life, I’d say. You know what I mean: when somebody from the periphery of your circle suddenly seems to be everywhere, and you have a little unexpected joke one day, and then bump into them again, and you think, wait, am I imagining this? You start to hope you’ll bump into them, practice your thoughts so you’ll have something charming to say when you do. Start getting mentionitis, fishing for more info from mutual friends, drop into conversation to the right person how funny this other new-ish person is… doesn’t that sound sexy? Fun? Hopeful? Compared to the apps, where it’s all, ‘Own my home, have all my own teeth, don’t swipe if ur not gonna message x’. I mean!! Anyway, I realise that what I have just described is essentially the sexual tension of a romance novel, so I suppose that’s the downside of being an author: what you can invent in your head often outweighs actual reality. Sad face. But yeah - the apps haven’t felt good, and working from home in my gym gear until recently means I wasn’t “just bumping into” anyone.

Anyway, despite stirrings lately, glimmers that yeah, okay, my kid is settled, work is figuring itself out, there’s some space now, I can see how somebody else might fit in to my life, I still didn’t do anything about it.

And then, my friend started seeing someone after a very long time of not seeing somebody, and seeing how happy she is was amazing.

And my dad is retired now, so comes to my house when I’m not here, with my mum, and she does the dishes and he sorts the garden and it’s like magical helping fairies have been and oh! How much easier life is when you aren’t trying to do it all yourself, when you let people help you!! Do married people feel helped like this all the time???? I’ve been thinking.

And then, on top of all that…I read a Paul McKenna book.

I’m actually serious. You know me and my 99p Kindle deals!! Well, Paul McKenna, ex-radio-DJ-turned-bestselling-hypnotist, was on the Kindle daily deal list, and I got it, and after a million amazing books I’m back in a nothing-scratching-the-reading-itch slump, so one Saturday in the garden I gave it a go.

POWER MANIFESTING, is the title.

I swear I dived in somewhat ironically.

But.

It has changed everything.