My number one cardinal rule is: Don’t overshare on social media. Use the trauma in your life to inform your writing. Sadly, I’m not much of a rule-follower so my life haemorrhages out into everything; my writing, my social media posts, or idle chit-chat in a supermarket queue to any stranger who is too bored or busy to move to another checkout. I have verbal diarrhoea and no filter. 

I exfoliate the trivial aspects of my life, shedding mumbles of discontent as I field endless calls and tasks, managing the chaos that surrounds our foster children’s lives while I recover from major surgery following removal of a cancerous tumour from my left cheek. Sixty-two stitches, one for each year of my life, in a u-shape from below my ear to under my eye and down past my nose. It’ll heal but, in the meantime, it hurts like hell and has turned me into an inflamed older woman.