back up blog

I’ve spent the past months talking about myself as a “brand”. That is really fucking weird. It’s weird to have conversations – with myself, and publishing professionals, and other bloggers who do what I am beginning to do – about who Laura Jane Williams is and what she stands for and where she’s going and why she’s talking about herself in third person. I make a living, right now, writing about my life, and given that I am writing a book about me, too – about my heart and soul and healing and all that juicy stuff – the levels of narcissism I’ve reached are Kardashian off-the-chart. I don’t know if I’m not just a little sick of myself. The Internet is my tribe . Let’s start there. This week alone I’ve met three perfect strangers – one from Twitter, one from Instagram and one through blogging – in Bangkok, all of who live in London but happen to be travelling, like me, and I’m amazed at how those people already felt like friends. There’s a trend for digital detoxing, because apparentl...

Basically, I asked the Internet if anyone would like to be my literary agent and they did. You guys! I am really, really excited (and nervous, and curious, and emotional andandand …) to say that I am hereto forth represented by the awe-inducingly innovative Ella Kahn, of Diamond Kahn and Woods Literary Agency. !!!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!! (You can read the agency announcement  here . Oh! And see my fancy author profile here .) (!!!!!!! x forever.) You know what? Balls to the wall. Chances. Asking the question. That’s how dreams come true. That’s how hustling happens. You don’t get if you don’t put yourself out there, and oh my Beyoncé, this past two weeks have been some of the most testing and anxiety-inducing of my writing life as I did just that.   I said, when I flew to Bali to hole-up where nobody knows my name , to get my 100,000 words, to just see if I could, that if this all went pear-shaped I’d still be proud. Proud of trying. But then, there was a wee period there where, ev...

I suppose what I’m learning is that there’s no graduation ceremony for life. I sort of hoped that there was. I had sex with a man twenty years my senior, is how this story starts. Ends. It happened somewhere in the middle. Days before, I’d said to a new friend - an incredibly charming Austrian - “No. I’m done dicking around. I’m looking for my husband. I’m serious about love.” And that felt like a brave thing to declare, because this guy, the Austrian, he was saying how girls just need to relax. Stop putting pressure on themselves. Enjoy sex without expectation, like “men” do. So it felt like a bold thing to do, to show my cards to the table that way, because it’s emphatically not #chill. And you know what? For a really fucking long time I played the Chill Girl. I’m mortified to admit that, but I know I’m not alone. (Tell me I’m not alone). In a weird way, though, despite myself and what I know to be true and real and right, I wanted this Austrian’s approval. Wanted him to think I was ...

Hi there, My name is Laura Jane Williams, and I’m writing a book that some very important people at some very important publishers have already emailed me to ask about. I think that will be of interest to you – at least, I hope it is, because it scares the bejesus out of me and so I’m gonna need somebody like you to take over from here on out, so that we can both focus on what we’re best at. The book is called My Vagina’s Monologue, and is, if I do say so myself, the ultimate twenty-something’s “survive and thrive” heartbreak memoir. Set across Paris, Rome, Detroit and.... Derby, it’s Eat, Pray, Love meets Wild in a post-Lena Dunham world. It’s basically the book I wish I’d had when, as a heartbroken millennial, it felt like I couldn’t go on.   My high school sweetheart dumped me so that he could marry my best friend. That is a real thing that happened to me . It's the kind of shit that hurts parts of you that you never quite realised could hurt - there’s a very specific spot behin...