Almost half of the world’s population is in lockdown, and so am I. Writing in lockdown has been something I’ve been really struggling with, and after four weeks of it, I wanted to write a blog about it and be really open and honest about it.

If you believed social media, you would think that everyone is loving lockdown! Enjoying baths, playing with their kids – there are some great moments that can be had when you are spending more time than normal with your loved ones.

But of course, there are downsides, and those aren’t the bits that we portray to the world, so it’s easy to get a skewed view on things.

My emotions, honestly, have pendulum-swung from side to side almost every day. Because my day job can be done at home, and my husband is a key worker so is leaving the house anyway, we made the decision that I would not leave the house/garden at all, and he would pick up food when we needed it when he was already out and about.

That means that I’ve not left the house for a month.

And it’s weird! In some ways, I love that: I’m very much a homegirl, and I love just being at home, in comfy clothes, relaxing.

But isn’t it funny: as soon as you are told you cannot do something, all you want to do is that thing!

I was also really looking forward to hosting a few family get-togethers this spring, all of which (of course) have been cancelled.

And in all of this, my writing has suffered. It’s hard to focus on a love scene set in Regency England when you keep hearing doom and gloom on the news.

I find it difficult to write light and frothy banter between my hero and my heroine when I am hearing such terrible news from friends and family about their loved ones.

It all feels a bit meaningless, do you know what I mean?

But yesterday, some of that shifted. I sent out a newsletter to my readers (late, sorry!) and I was really honest with them about how it was challenging, and I was doing my best. I wasn’t even expecting a response, I just wanted to be honest with them.

The emails I have received over the last 24 hours have been so lovely – some of them even made me cry! To know that my readers were absolutely standing with me, that some of them were finding it hard, but that my books – and the books from other authors – were keeping me going…

It reminded me why I love to write, and why I wrote in the first place.

So this morning, I woke up early and instead of lounging in bed (tempting, I know), I got up, headed downstairs, cracked open the laptop, and finally finished some edits on a book.

And it feels great.

How are you doing in lockdown? Are you finding motivation hard? Are your emotions all over the place?