Sarah Ann Hall

Ten years after quitting a job with a regular salary and a pension, I’m still a wannabe writer.

My first novel, all about mother-daughter relationships and how they repeat through the generations, is in a bottom drawer. Hopefully it will never see the light of day. There have been a couple of book length stories since that might suffer a revisit.

To raise my profile, I moved on to short stories. I had a couple published in anthologies and was shortlisted in a few competitions. It helped to learn that other people thought I could write.

I took a break from life during 2009-10 to build a new floating home and revamp my parents’ house. All DIY projects now over, I have been back writing for about a year now. Living on the water and moving about the UK waterways does not allow for much routine, but I have one day a week when my husband is out and I write, write, and write a bit more. One day a week has allowed me to finish the first draft of my current story and I’m onto the editing.

I blog about my writing, or more often about the reasons I’m not writing. I also tweet occasionally about what’s going on around us on whichever waterway we’re travelling along.

I find it’s better to stay offline if I want to get anything done.