Hiya - I'm Ellie, and I'm a writer

Hiya,

I’m Ellie, and I’m a writer.

I’m also an enthusiast, which is probably how most of you know me first and foremost. And - as a lot of us have - I’ve been doing a looooot of existential crisis-ing this past year; about who I am, what I do, and where I want to be in the future (just the small things to be pondering during a global crisis, hey?)

With the help of time, space, and some brilliant conversations with even more brilliant people, it has become apparent to me that being a writer is central to my identity. Now, I wrote full manuscripts to publishing houses when I was 12, and I’m a literal copywriter by trade - I said I was enthusiastic, not self-aware - and though I love it and can’t really imagine ever not doing it, I’d never thought of writing as that big a part of who I am. (To be honest, in a period of my life where I’ve really worked hard to do the necessary work of divorcing my sense of self from my work to keep them at a healthy distance, I’ve probably tried to actively cleave them away from each other, keeping them separate and in their own neat boxes, star-crossed lovers never to meet again.)

Mum, Jo, Selina, everyone, before you panic: I’m not going to undo this painstaking work; I’m not hopping straight back onto the All Work No Play bus, destination Burnout, population count: me. But I am going to honour that instinctual urge to be more, do more, show up more as a writer, because it feels like those roots go DEEP.

The further irony is that I spend a lot of my day encouraging other people to follow their enthusiasms, but had never followed this golden thread far enough. But that changes here, and it changes today!!! I’m going to be sharing more on my blog and on my newsletter - some of them researched, some of them random, more than likely some of them rants just because of who I am as a person, and some of them could charitably be called ‘thinkpieces’ or ‘essays’ if you’d spent the evening at a Be At One Happy Hour and were squinting with your head on the side - with the hope that some of the words land, and impress. Obviously in an ideal world that would be ‘impress’ as in to dazzle you with my wit and genius - again, I said I was an enthusiast, not someone who doesn’t crave praise every minute of every day - but what I’m really hoping for is ‘impress’ as in to leave an impression. More than anything in the world I want to use writing to connect - with myself, and with you wonderful people - and to encourage enthusiasm and authenticity and all the good stuff in the world.

I’m excited! Thank you for coming along the journey with me.

Ellie xx

P.s. sorry for the self-indulgence of this, but as my brilliant friend Sasha always says, do through doubt. Had I sat around trying to perfect this, I would have continued the cycle of procrastination I’ve been in for a few weeks and still, in the seventh lockdown in 2056 when the PM’s response had gone from Whatsapping “wtf do we do” to just projecting it on the side of Big Ben for the lols, would have not made any moves towards more writing. Also, it’s kind of the cyclical nature of the beast: what is being a writer, if not spilling your innermost thoughts and feelings out on the page?!