Introducing: Bring me sunshine

The who, where, what, how and why of my new Substack.

Blimey. The idea of laying out a mission statement for what is essentially a whizzy blog is a bit awkward for me as a writer, let alone you as a reader. Anyway, here it goes…

Who?

Even referring to myself as a writer feels pretty up myself and pretentious. Shudder. I have been paid to write for over twenty years, so I’d say that maybe I’m allowed to say I’m a writer. Still shuddering. Wait, the naval gazing of writing about writing is what Substack is all about, isn’t it?

Anyho, that’s some of the who: an embarrassed copywriter. I’ve worked in radio, marketing and comms so can dabble in a fair few things, editing audio and video wise. As well as writing, in a dream world I’d actually get a podcast off the ground. So many ideas, so useless at following through with them. Watch this space!

Me as a person? I’m your classic 45-year-old childless, renowned spinster with not many responsibilities, a modicum of a social life and time to travel. Massive telly, music and podcast consumer. I’m on the Brighton Rockers roller derby team and going to the gym more these days to toughen up for that.

Where?

I flit along the south coast of England between Bournemouth and Brighton. I love me a sea dip as I am a middle-aged, middle-class woman caricature. Otherwise, usually in the winter, I’m on a ridiculous long-haul to somewhere far-flung and warm, more than often woefully attempting to speak Spanish.

What?

Waffling on about everything and anything isn’t exactly a useful definition. Generally, will be about culture and trying to stay relevant as much as a solid gold xennial can. A fair bit of writing will be about my adventures, most recently the Caribbean and South America, but there’s buckets of countries still on my bucket list.

I’m a big telly head, mostly comedy, prestige drama with a quirky edge, sci-fi ideas in a day-to-day setting and some bona fide nonsense trash. Major podcast listener on me travels and on the go, so will be doing some poddy waffle. Ex-DJ but retired these days as too old to hack it. I’m constantly Shazamming, love me a good Spotify playlist and am in a Music League which has been an ear-opener to hear some new stuff.

Going for silly and fun, but not completely averse to a dose of reality. So, I might touch upon body image, feminism, society and the day-to-day crap people have to deal with. Life wise, I may chatter about neuroscience, chronic fatigue, liver disease, binge-eating and the like. I’m clearly ADHD but not been officially diagnosed (obviously, I can’t pull my finger out to complete the NHS form yet, but it’s on the to-do list).

Just want to share bits and bobs and nitter-natter about interesting things, really.

How?

On Substack, as apparently, it’s great for writing and pods. Aiming for a few posts a week, at least. Have loads to start off with, ideas backed up for days, but we’ll see how we’re going in a few months. Making it free to all, but people can subscribe if they want to support all this gubbins. No expectations or owt.

For 2025, it would be fandabbydozzy to get some proper podcast plans on the horizon, please.

Why?

After some toing-and-froing, I’ve plumped for the title: Bring me sunshine.

Obviously, as a big comedy and telly fan, who doesn’t fancy a little celebration of Eric and Ernie? Hoping to bring some sunshine and all that. Never toxic positivity, but a sunny-ish disposition where I can. Plus, I’m an old sunseeker chasing that giant fiery ball round the world.

On a wider scale, I’m just another writing type attempting to assert their humanness in a world sloping into AI sameness. In work, I’ve written for a long time for multitudes of brands (your social media posts, blogs, ads and cultural consultations) but that hasn’t left much space for me to write for writing’s sake. I’m allowing myself to indulge this writer thing a tad and blather on about what I’m into… wherever this might take us.

Will be interesting to see how my voice develops on here, as it still feels pretty copywriter-ish right this second. Hopefully, I can deprogramme my brand-y brain some more and see what shakes out.

Right! Let’s give it a whirl, folks.