On 22 June, a friend and I started body doubling.

The idea was simple. We would work alongside each other. No complicated system. No checking up on each other. No reporting back. Just two people quietly getting on with their own work.

At first, I thought the benefit would be obvious.

I would get more done.

And I have.

But three months later, I think something else has been happening. There is now a trail of evidence.

Poems written. Pieces finished and submitted. Rejections survived. Articles published. Blogs posted. Competitions entered. Work sent out into the world.

Things that might once have remained ideas are becoming things I have actually done.

I hadn’t expected body doubling to change my relationship with starting, finishing or consistency, but it has.

There is less negotiation with myself now. I don’t have to spend quite so much energy getting myself to begin. I know someone else will be there, and I will be there too.

As the life of a writer is often a solitary one, there is something powerful about another person simply being present while you do the work.

You are witnessed.

Your creative life isn’t entirely happening inside your own head anymore.

There is accountability, but without pressure. We are simply alongside each other.

And somehow, that has created momentum.

One piece leads to another. You begin to trust yourself. I said I’d do this, and then I did it.

I think that is where something else has shifted too: identity.

Repeatedly behaving like a writer starts to make “writer” feel less aspirational and more factual.

Three months ago, I might have said I wanted to become a writer. Now I have rather a lot of evidence that I am one.

And then there was Thursday.

One of my articles was published in the local paper.

The photograph of the team is there on the page. My words are in a newspaper. My name is in print.

And the lovely thing is that I wrote the article during our body-doubling session on Monday.

Monday: I sat down and wrote.

Thursday: I opened the newspaper and saw it there.

And the piece I wrote that Monday?
It was about showing up.

And maybe that’s what I’ve been learning.

I don’t think the answer is simply that I became more productive.

I became more consistent.

I became someone who finishes, submits, keeps going after rejection, and trusts herself a little more.

I started body doubling because I wanted to get more done.

I didn’t realise I might also be learning how to show up for myself.

Body doubling didn’t just help me do the work.

It helped me collect evidence of the writer I was becoming.