In March this year, I was awarded a grant by Arts Council England under their ‘Develop Your Creative Practice’ scheme. And today the doing part of it was supposed to start. My brilliant writer friend, Rebecca Franks, had mentioned the DYCP grant to me a few years back, as she had successfully applied for it to support her finishing her first novel. I remember being amazingly impressed, doing a bit of research into the grant online, looking at the musicians who had been awarded it previously and immediately thinking, ‘Well, it’s not for people like me, is it’. But the niggling thought that would not go away was, ‘Why not?’ And although it took me a couple of years to believe it, I realised that it was exactly for people like me, and there was no ‘Why not’?, so I began searching in earnest for the ‘Why’. And here it is.

In 2020 & 2021 there was Covid. In 2022 I had a child and spent the rest of that year trying to keep myself, him and the rest of our household (husband and dog) alive. Miraculously, I also somehow managed to go back to work. And then at some point in 2023, when we’d emerged from the insanity of the first year of parenthood, there was a growing realisation that actually, the whole world and my whole world had changed, and I needed to Do Something to catch up.

I didn’t really know what that Thing was, so I started listening to the thoughts that had been swirling there somewhere, in the fug of sleepless nights, breast feeding, nappy changes and insanely intense tours with a baby in tow:

I’m sort of treading water here; it’s fine to fall back on the work I’d put in to this point so I can focus on my young family in the early days, but this isn’t a for ever strategy. Doing the kind of gigs I do now used to terrify me, and that hardly ever happens these days. A little terror is good, and I want some more of it. I love touring, I love the brilliant colleagues I work with, and I want to make sure I still love it in 10 years. I’m very fortunate that a large proportion of the work I do I still feel completely invested in, but the older I get, and the more I know exactly who I am, the more aware I am that I’m almost always delivering someone else’s creative vision. Where is my voice?

I started talking to people, brilliant people doing exciting things that I’d look at and think, ‘Wow, I’d love to be doing that’, and to a person, they were all incredibly generous with their time and advice. And so gradually the idea formed that I wanted to undertake 10 month period of exploring solo repertoire, contemporary repertoire, especially music and texts written by women. And I would update my website, and make some recordings and hustle, and, finally, put on a solo performance of something totally new (to me), hopefully including my own writing in some way.

We’ll see where it ends up. I’m excited that I don’t really know.

Today was going to be day 1 of this whole thing kicking off. Day 1 of the child having a full day in nursery. I was totally baffled this morning by the vast expanse of time stretching before me and was excited to get to work. There were just a few things to take care of before I could get started.

First there was the child to be dropped at nursery, my husband to be dropped at the school where he teaches one day a week, and the dog to be walked. Fine, dog walking can equal thinking time, fresh air and an invigorating start to the day. And anyway, the cleaners were in so it’s always nice not to be under their feet too much. Home again, I’ll just pop on a load of laundry so that’s going while I’m working, and then it’s time to look at all the ‘to do’ things and make them into a list and diarised plan so I don’t get distracted by them. And I might as well deal with these couple of quick things now, it’s almost as quick as writing the list after all. Plus I promised I’d drop off some Vinted items today, so I must get them packaged up this morning. I’ll just make a cup of tea and then I can get started. But suddenly it’s approaching the time to go and pick my husband up again, so I’d better squeeze in a quick lunch. And then when he’s home, actually it would be great to talk through some diary questions because it’s almost impossible to do this when the child is around. And then, do you know what? I just needed a nap. (We’d had paramedics round two nights ago and I’d ‘slept’ on the child’s bedroom floor. All fine, but definitely still out of whack from that).

So anyway, now it’s almost 4 pm, and I’m finally sitting down to write.

And actually, that’s fine. This won’t count as day 1, at least not the day 1 I can account for myself to the DYCP people. But it is day 1 for me, and the thing I’ve learned is that there’s never going to be a good time, a clear day, someone other than me saying ‘Do it now’.