[image error]It’s ten weeks since I stopped working full-time and returned to writing. My original plan was to have a few weeks off, perhaps revisit a writing project or two, before returning to the safety, structure and security of full-time work.

When I first finished work, I missed my co-workers and the warmth,  humour and good-natured banter of the office. It felt so lonely coming back to the world of writing.  I wrote a list of creative projects to give me structure to my days; a scaffold to cling to. I was scared of too much time, of the blankness of the page.

When I’m writing, it’s easy to feel on the outskirts, that the rest of the world is engaged, useful and productive. But as the weeks passed, and I slipped back in to my new reality, I realised how much I’d missed it, had forgotten what a good, faithful friend writing is. How I love being immersed in something; the flush of feeling when it clicks into place.

The world has changed beyond recognition in these past ten weeks. Now it seems that instead of me rejoining the world of work, the world of work has come to me – to join in –  this alarming, glorious, unsettling isolation. There’s still part of me that wishes I was at work – how much more useful I could be right now, if I were a nurse, or a doctor, or a greengrocer.

But in times like these all we can do is embrace what we are. I’ve set up an on-line creativity course for groups of writers – who are all hellbent on rising to the challenge of our collective isolation. This week we’re writing haikus and dribbles (50 word stories) and establishing our new daily routines. I love the camaraderie of the shared experience – the office may have changed, but the co-workers still rock.