MY WRITING DAY
Jemma Wayne
The writer and journalist tells Lynne Hackles about being organised when there’s no-one to hold you to account
Lynne Hackles
Bestselling author Jemma Wayne works school hours. ‘I’m usually at my desk from after the kids are at school until pick-up time,’ she says. ‘Sometimes things flow, sometimes it’s a long slog, so I may write from 500 words to three or four thousand in a day. School holidays are less work intense. One of the great privileges of writing is that it can be flexible and I’m able to grab fleeting moments. When my children are home, I’ll only do a couple hours of writing in the day, and sometimes more in the evening.
‘My children are 11, 8 and 3, so we’re a young family, and at a time in life where we look inwards to that. Most of our social lives seem to be structured around the kids’ friends and activities, and at the weekends, we usually choose to spend it with our extended family – currently swarming with cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents; a delicious chaos.