Rae of Light

      Chantelle Atkins Chantelle Atkins was born and raised in Bournemouth, Dorset and still resides there now with her husband, children and various animals. She writes in both the Young Adult and Adult genre, and describes her work as gritty and character driven. WORK /LIFE BALANCE In the day I don't get any actual writing done but I do go online and do bits and bobs - emails or promo stuff, whatever the baby allows. Then I don't get on again till he's in bed. It's just solid then until I go to bed – 3 or 4 writing hours maybe. My other three children are all a bit older so they know once the baby's in bed it's my writing time. But I feel guilty all the time. But they understand that a bit because it's the only time I have until he wakes up. The day goes so quickly. When the baby was teeny tiny I got loads done because he was just asleep or I could have him with me and carried on so it was brilliant. I have Saturday nights

Have I mentioned before that writing is a lonely business? Of course I have. So to avoid feeling isolated us writers have to find ways to make it less so. One of the easiest I've discovered, apart from walking away from my laptop and leaving the house, is social media. It's a good way to meet other writers and like minded people. Even though I've been on Facebook for quite some time I've only really been posting more regularly since I set up my author page.  And since then I've discovered there are a wealth of Indie authors out there beavering away on their lonesome from dawn till dusk. And others from dusk till dawn.  And I thought that rather than hide away in our ivory towers, we should band together and conquer the world. Mmmm – a bit of my megalomania creeping to the fore there. Let's move on shall we. In a bid to become even more social media savvy I signed on to a Twitter workshop at SAF with Emily Benet a