My vir­tu­al diary has nev­er been this busy. Speed net­work­ing, catch-up Zooms, Euro­vi­sion par­ties, Fri­day after­noon drinks and even a mur­der mys­tery. The vari­ety has been great, but the open­ing ques­tion is always: “So, how has copy­writ­ing in Mil­ton Keynes been dur­ing the lockdown?”

And, while I polite­ly smile and say “every­thing is great, thank you for ask­ing. How’s [insert pro­fes­sion] going for you?”, there’s actu­al­ly a lot more I’d like to say. 

So here’s a blog about it. 

The good

I love writ­ing and I love Mil­ton Keynes, so I’m pret­ty hap­py with the cur­rent set-up. In particular:

More blogs

As you’ll know, I write across all indus­tries but I’m par­tic­u­lar­ly pop­u­lar in the eCom­merce tech sec­tor. And, thank­ful­ly, this sec­tor is booming. 

An increase in online orders has giv­en new and exist­ing eCom­merce busi­ness­es the rea­son to invest in tech and out­sourced ful­fil­ment – giv­ing soft­ware and logis­tics com­pa­nies plen­ty to blog about for SEO and knowl­edge sharing. 

More web copy

The lock­down has also pro­vid­ed less busy busi­ness­es with an oppor­tu­ni­ty to give their own web­site some TLC. 

I’ve been involved in a vari­ety of web copy projects – help­ing brands dis­cov­er and cap­ture their voice through­out their website. 

More walking

I’ve always known that Mil­ton Keynes has a lot more to offer than round­abouts and con­crete cows, but the lock­down has real­ly opened my eyes. Miles upon miles of wood­lands, park­lands, lakes, vil­lages and fields has made me fall in love with MK all over again. 

The per­fect set­ting when I need some copy inspiration. 

The not-so good

Of course, it hasn’t all been ros­es. Aside from liv­ing through a seri­ous pan­dem­ic and try­ing to get my all-of-a-sud­den social but­ter­fly grand­par­ents to stay in, being a copy­writer in Mil­ton Keynes dur­ing the lock­down has also result­ed in:

Paused projects

I’m a copy­writer for a vari­ety of busi­ness­es, big and small, in Mil­ton Keynes. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, some of my small­er clients have fur­loughed their staff and put their blogs on hold. This is com­plete­ly under­stand­able but it doesn’t make me miss these clients any less. 

New colleagues

I don’t think I’m alone hav­ing some teething prob­lems with my new lock­down col­leagues. Dif­fer­ent music tastes, clash­ing lunchtimes, and an inabil­i­ty to recog­nise my “do not dis­turb” face made the first few weeks tough, but we got there. 

Working from home

Before the lock­down, I spent 70% of my time work­ing from home and 30% of my time work­ing at a client’s. I didn’t think I’d have a prob­lem work­ing from home all of the time – I’m lucky enough to have an office and I real­ly appre­ci­ate being able to give my copy some one-on-one time. How­ev­er, I’m strug­gling. Work­ing, exer­cis­ing and social­is­ing at home has led to me work­ing more and relax­ing less. 

The future

So, what does the future look like for this Mil­ton Keynes copy­writer? Hope­ful­ly, bright. I’m already see­ing an increase in busi­ness­es “get­ting back to it” and kick­start­ing their blogs and social media content. 

Like every­one else, I’m far from back to nor­mal, but this is an excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty to rede­fine what nor­mal is.