Well hello there! Fancy seeing you here! 

Now I’ll be honest, when I first thought about what to write for my first blog post, my mind went blank… I know imagine writing and self-publishing your own book only for your mind to go blank over a simple blog post! But it’s true! I think because it’s the first impression of me you will get to see that makes it daunting. But I thought the best way to wean myself into it I would start with the most generic blog post ever… ✨an about me post!✨ 

So let’s start with the basics – Hi! I’m Hannah (incase the name of this site didn’t already give the away) and I’m currently 24 years old as I am writing this post. I live a simple life of going to work, coming home to my Mum and my little pug Bertie, writing my books and spending my time either trying to get back into reading – which is an on and off task – scrolling through my phone or writing my books! I’m a secret grandma if I am honest with you, my favourite film is The Sound of Music (enough said really) and there’s nothing I love more than attending a Westlife concert or more recently travelling with my Mum and dancing the night away at a Drifters concert! Now’s probably not the best time to tell you that I have had a go at knitting and cross stitching before… #GrandmaVibes👵🏻

ANYWAYS… as I have mentioned before I am a newly self-published author through Amazon after releasing my first book ‘Academy Assassination’ in February 2024. And as I said in my about page, I didn’t always want to be a writer! So let’s start with that!

I am sure my family will agree that I was never seen as the academic one in my family, my sister took that title. I also never really knew what I wanted to do growing up, I would jump from one idea to the other and never really have my heart firmly set on anything. Until year 11 work experience week came around and I had no idea where I was going to go… At the time Mum and I had been talking about me becoming an air hostess because apparently I would be good at that (spoiler alert! Turns out my ears hurt too much when we come into landing, I wouldn’t be very good in a crisis and I would suffer from homesickness) so my work experience week was spent in my local nursery as this would help me to gain experience interacting with children which I would have to do during flights. After day one of working there I fell in love and soon the plan changed from travel and tourism to childcare, so after passing my GCSE’s (with far better grades than both myself or my family were expecting!) I was off to study childcare in college. 

I really enjoyed college! I had a really nice group of friends, one of them has now become one of my closest friends (love you Chum) and seemed to do really well at it! Whilst studying at college, part of the course required you to gain experience in a primary school which, yes you guessed it, I fell in love with so I was off applying to universities to study primary teaching!

After getting into my second choice uni and moving away from home (so proud of younger Hannah for doing that because I tell you there’s no way I could do that now!) I was spending my days stressing over course work or assignments or constantly asking people if they have any idea what was going on – can any other uni students relate? I graduated uni with a 2:2 and you know at the time I was disappointed in myself. But looking back at it now for somebody who never thought in their wildest dreams they would get into uni (and my family would agree) actually being able to pass a four year uni degree with a 2:2 isn’t all that bad and is something to be proud of. A shoutout to any teacher training students out there – if anyone says to you teaching (especially primary teaching) is easy and you just get to laminate and cut out pictures all day, laugh in their face and run them through a step-by-step run down of your day. Trust me they won’t say it again! I know how hard you teachers work and I have full respect for all of you 🫶🏻

So as you can guess I don’t have a teaching job. Nope unfortunately when I left university I never got past the handing in my application stage and then never hearing from any of the schools I applied for again. I even went down the supply teaching route, but as a teaching assistant to hopefully help me gain some experience in the field, but that didn’t work out either. I soon began to lose motivation and my love for teaching; and as Christmas soon rolled around and my savings were slowly wasting away, I needed money quite quickly. So I applied at one of the big supermarket chains in my area (you know the one where every little helps?) and soon got a job as a temporary Christmas colleague and soon became permanent in the weeks after Christmas. I think the clinching moment was when I told the interviewer that the idea of stacking shelves whilst wearing a Christmas jumper and singing along to the Christmas songs sounded great to me… trust me when I say that doesn’t last.

I will say that as much as my job can be mind-numbing and infuriating at times (that’s another post in itself) my job and my manager were a saving grace to me when I needed to take a large amount of time off when my Mum suffered a stroke. Luckily the stroke wasn’t as severe as it could have been and my Mum was out of hospital four days after she was admitted, but I took a month off work to help her build up her speech again and just generally be there for her. Even after I returned to work, I was only doing my contracted hours (Saturday 10-7 and Sunday 9-6) no overtime as I knew that other people were around to be there for Mum should she need anything. In the year or so since her stroke my hours have been changed again to more suitable hours (Monday through to Wednesday 12-5:15) which means I am not out of the house and leaving Mum on her own for as long which works well for all of us. But Mum’s stroke made me realise that life was far too short to spend it slaving away all the hours of the day working when I wanted to be spending time with my family and making memories with them rather than piling up the coins; and luckily my work allows me to do that!

Now a bit of more light-heartedness (sorry should have put a warning on that last paragraph) one little bundle of fur who gives both Mum and I so much joy in our lives is Bertie the pug. Now it’s no surprise when I say that Bertie spends three quarters of his life napping on the sofa or curled up in bed, but we love him to pieces! I get so much happiness coming home from work and being greeted two little front paws resting on top of the stair gate and a curly tail frantically wagging at me – Look at him, he’s so sweet! 🥹

Now as I said before I had never set out to be a writer and my family were just as surprised as I was when this first book came about, particularly as I barely told anyone I was doing it! But as I explained on my about page, after seeing ‘The Mirror Crack’d From Side To Side’ at York Theatre, I was inspired and thought of what my own murder mystery book would be about. I spent the rest of the car ride home googling things and writing ideas down in the notes app on my phone. I built up the courage and told my mum about my idea a day or so later who gave me all the confidence and support I could ever need to get my through the writing and editing stage, especially as she had to read it through twice (bless her, she’s a good egg 🫶🏻). I actually came up with the idea for the book and started planning it a week or two before I started at my retail job and continued to write and edit it on and off for the following year or so and at long last the book was finally published February 2024!

And so here am I! Now writing the second book and trying to branch my marketing platforms through this website, whilst also hopefully inspiring other people to find their ideas hidden away in scribbles on pieces of paper or submerged in the never ending list of notes on their phones and do something with them and giving my own advice along the way as I stumble through my own authoring journey (wouldn’t hold out much hope on the advice section, but you never know, I’m keeping optimistic!) 

So if you like what you have read so far – or simply think ‘Yeah, let’s read more about what this nutty Grandma inside a young adults body gets up to in her life!’ – then stick around for more!

And if my first book ‘Academy Assassination’ sounds write up your street (haha get it ‘write’ up instead of ‘right’ up… yeah I’ll stop now) then you can click on the link on the homepage to be taken straight to the Amazon website or you can order the book through this website and have a signed copy! – I know don’t say I don’t spoil ya!

And I hope to speak to you again in my next blog post!

TTFN – Love Hannah ❤️ x

Written: Friday 10th May 2024.