I hear the Real World is full of nature, culture and conversation. It sounds lovely.

Unfortunately for me, the latter half of 2025 has seen me slowly complete my metamorphosis into a strange little laptop gremlin: a reclusive creature who communicates solely through digital devices and occasional grunts for tea.

Friends and colleagues often tell me they can’t work from home because they get too distracted. They fart about a lot. I seem to have the opposite problem: the introvert in me gleefully writes to-do lists, frantically taps the keyboard and glowers at anyone who dares to call me for actual conversation. My better half gently appears at lunchtime to see if he can lure me outside for this mythical thing called fresh air.

Anyway, despite my self-imposed exile and relentless work flow I have still somehow overlooked this blog for the best part of six months. Imagine a marketing professional who doesn’t market their own work! Marketing often drops down in the list of priorities for smaller organisations, and I have recently secured a lot of new business by working as an extension of my client’s in-house team: penning press releases, blog posts, business plans and reports – and even knocking a few designs out on Canva (don’t come at me, designers). I love that my clients trust me to work with them in this way, providing extra resource when their team is overloaded. Trouble is, I’ve sort of neglected my own comms along the way.

I feel very lucky to have enjoyed a busy period where the work just flowed in. I want to stress here that I have also had periods where metaphorical tumbleweed blew across my office and I stopped checking my bank balance out of pure fear – so if you’re reading this in a quiet spell: I see you, we’ve all been there, and it will get better.

Selected highlights of the past few months

Mensa magazine – superstition ain’t the way – You ever get a moment when you realise all over again why you love what you do? I had one of those moments while working on this commission. Mensa UK’s magazine and newsletter are produced by the clever bods at Think Publishing in Glasgow, a company I have worked with for more years than I care to admit. I pitched a feature exploring superstition – why, in a rational, scientific age, we still find such comfort in the irrational? The feature explored the neurological and sociological underpinnings of superstition, covering common superstitions to the role of ritual in elite sports. It was one of those rare features where you get some great interviews and the words just flow. Happy days.

Ghostie blogs – Ghostwriting is one of my most popular services, and it’s something I really enjoy. I get to chat to really interesting people who are experts in their field, then draft articles and blogs in their tone of voice. It’s a great way of generating strong, authoritative content and introducing variety and diversity to clients’ comms channels. Often, I interview people with incredible intellect but who struggle to translate their expertise into engaging copy for a general audience. For instance, I regularly ghostwrite blogs for spinal surgeons! More recently, I have written a series of blog posts promoting the many benefits of living, visiting and working in the Highlands. The only downside to ghostwriting? You don’t get to show off your work!

Flexing my design muscles – I wrote, designed and organised the printing of a mini prospectus for Focus North, a public-private economic partnership driving growth in the north of Scotland. This brochure debuted at the Scottish Government’s Just Transition conference last month, and it’s the first printed product I’ve designed. I’m not a graphic designer and would never market myself as such, but I do notice that AI (in this case Canva) increasingly blurs the lines between disciplines. Just as I don’t believe ChatGPT will take the jobs of writers, Canva won’t take the jobs of designers – it just makes some simple stuff more accessible while freeing up creatives’ time for more specialist work. But that’s a subject for a whole other blog post…

A month of firsts

December has brought some interesting new work.

This week, I secured my first commission to review the branding, comms strategy and website of a growing local organisation. For this project I have teamed up with the talented team at White Light Media, who will lead on the web design elements while I take care of the comms strategy and copywriting. I’m really excited to get started – watch this space for more details!

Another first for me is writing and researching a political manifesto. This will involve extensive policy research and a collaboration with the highly respected Fraser of Allander Institute. I’m really interested to see how economists turn data into projections, and how I can use that as the basis for a realistic political ‘ask’ ahead of the 2026 elections.

So, plenty to keep me busy and keep me tied to my laptop! Perhaps my New Year’s Resolution will be to venture outside in the fresh air and try having conversations with people in 3D. How radical is that?

Got a job for me? Get in touch for a chat.