Digital, Not Analogue - And Why I’m Choosing to Step Offline

For most of my adult life, I’ve lived in two worlds.

There’s the world of IT — the one with the endless notifications, the Teams pings, the late‑night “quick questions”, the mental tabs that never quite close. It’s a world I know well. A world I’ve been good at. A world that has shaped how I think, how I problem‑solve, and how I show up for people.

Technology always on

And then there’s the other world — the one I built quietly, in the early mornings and late evenings, in notebooks, in half‑formed ideas held in my head. The world of stories. The world of DI Matthew Goodwin and Penny Stock. The world where I get to decide the pace, the stakes, the silence.

This June, I’m finally stepping fully into that second world.

I’ve resigned from my job.

I’m going full‑time as an author.

It feels surreal to write that sentence.

The “always on” life and the character who mirrors it

If you’ve read Lethal Leith Hill, you’ll know Penny Stock is the team’s tech mind — the one they picture half‑asleep with her phone in her hand, the one who can make a keyboard sing, the one who always has the answer before anyone else has finished the question.

That scene at the start of the book — the team imagining her in bed, phone glowing, already solving the problem — came straight from the world I’ve lived in for years.

Because that’s what IT can feel like.

You’re never fully off.

Your brain is always scanning, sorting, anticipating.

You’re the person people rely on to “just fix it”.

And Penny, for all her brilliance, carries that same weight.

Writing became the place where I could breathe

What I didn’t realise until recently is that writing has been my analogue space in a digital life.

It’s the one place where I’m not expected to respond instantly.

Where I can sit with a thought instead of reacting to it.

Where the only notifications are the ones I choose to create.

And as I’ve been working through this series — especially the contrast between Penny’s hyper‑connected world and the off‑grid fear at the heart of Don’t Die for Me, Argentina - I’ve felt something shift in myself too.

I don’t want to live “always on” anymore.

I don’t want my creativity squeezed into the gaps between meetings.

I don’t want my worth measured in productivity metrics.

I want space.

I want depth.

I want to write.

Leaving IT doesn’t mean leaving that part of me behind

The funny thing is: Penny is still me.

The part of me that loves systems, logic, patterns, puzzles - that doesn’t disappear just because I’m closing the laptop on my IT career.

But now I get to use that part of myself differently.

Not to keep up.

Not to stay available.

Not to be the person who fixes everything.

But to build worlds.

To craft stories.

To create something that lasts longer than a sprint cycle.

So today’s post isn’t about launch strategy

It’s about transition.

About choosing a different rhythm.

About stepping out of the digital noise and into something quieter, deeper, more intentional.

And maybe that’s why Penny resonates so strongly with me this week.

Because even she - queen of tech, master of the digital world - is about to face what it means to be unreachable.

And so am I.

Have a good week, I am counting down to June.

Helen